The man froze, arms by his side, hands open.
“Who are you?” he called. “What do you want? I’m not looking for trouble.”
He had a pleasant accent—like a brogue, Scottish or Irish, Jessica couldn’t really tell the difference.
“Is this your cabin?” Ethan stalked toward him.
“Who’s asking?”
Ethan flashed his investigator ID.
“I can’t see that.”
That didn’t seem to bother Ethan. “I’m investigating a crime that may have happened in this cabin. Kidnapping, possible trafficking. Know anything about that?”
Ethan stopped about twenty yards from the man, whose face went grim.
“No.”
“Are you the one who’s been shooting things up out here?”
“What ‘things’ are you referring to?” the man asked cautiously. “I fired at a skunk once but that didn’t go well for me.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m not inclined to have a chat with someone aiming a weapon at me. Let me see that ID again.”
Peering from behind the boulder, Jessica shook her head. This man was no more a plane-murdering criminal than she was. Her intuition and her common sense agreed about that.
She abandoned her spot behind the boulder and hurried after Ethan. “Put that down,” she murmured. “We don’t need it.”
Ethan frowned at her, but he must have agreed with her because he let the weapon drop as she came to his side.
“Sorry, sir,” she called to the strange man as she stepped toward him. “We’ve had a rough night, getting shot at and all.”
“Aye, that sounds like a trial indeed.”
“What are you doing?” Ethan grabbed her by the arm. “I told you to stay back. Remember the parameters?”
She shook him off. “They don’t apply because there’s no danger here.”
“You don’t know that.”
She planted her hands on her hips. “Actually, you’re right. There’s a grumpy guy with a gun around, making me nervous.”
“I’m not grumpy. I’m protective.”
“Can you just point it somewhere else so we can have a conversation with this fellow? He’s not even from here. Is that any way to treat a visitor?”
She turned back to face the stranger.
He’d tucked his hands into his pockets and was watching them with amusement. “How long have you two been married? I’m guessing it’s at least ten years.”
“Oh, we’re not married at all. In fact we only just met a few days ago when I brought cardamom cherry scones to the jail and—“
Ethan interrupted. “We’re from Lost Harbor. We’re looking for a cabin that fits this description. Would you mind if we look inside?”
“Are you police officers?”
“No. I’m a private investigator and my associate here is—“
“Best friends with the police chief,” Jessica said. “And a baker.”
“Your scones do sound tempting.” The lilt in his voice made him sound constantly amused. “I have no problem with you touring this cabin, but would it be too much to ask you to holster your gun?”
Ethan didn’t look happy about that request, but he complied. He tucked it back under his jacket.
“Jessica.” Keeping his voice low, he touched her arm. “Be careful. Criminals can seem like normal people on the surface. We don’t know this man.”
“Well, is threatening him with a gun the best way to get to know him?”
“Just. Be careful.” He ran a hand through his hopelessly mussed hair. “You’re going to be the death of me, I swear.”
“Oh, so after all those near-death experiences I’m going to be the final straw?”
“Are you coming in?” the man called. “It’s perfectly fine with me if you don’t, you know.”
She turned away from Ethan and marched toward the cabin. “I’m Jessica Dixon, and this is Ethan James.”
“Alastair Dougal.”
“Where are you from, Alastair?”
“New York. Scotland before that.”
He stepped back to allow them into the dark cabin. Jessica shivered as she stepped inside. A dank and gloomy atmosphere clung to the stained logs and rickety old furniture. A sleeping bag and foam mat were set out on the floor. On the table sat a water jug and a pile of canned goods—pinto beans and chicken soup, corn Niblets and beef chili. The smell of must and ancient ashes prickled her nose.
As she gazed around at the dingy space, her heart sank. Other than the man’s belongings, everything else had been cleared out. Nothing remotely “personal” remained.
“Lovely place you have.” Might as well be polite.
“Truthfully, it’s not mine. I found it empty and I’ve been using it as a base for a few days.”
“A base for what?” Ethan ducked his head under the beam over the doorway as he stepped in. Immediately his nostrils twitched. Right now she was glad her sense of smell wasn’t supercharged.
“Oh no,” said Alastair. “I’d like a little more reciprocity before I share any more. What is your interest in this cabin?”
Ethan scrutinized him for a long moment. Jessica decided that the investigation parameters applied here—he was in charge of information flow. So she held her tongue while he pondered.
“We think that a young girl was held captive here by a trapper. We’re investigating the case.”
Alastair’s eyebrows rose. Jessica liked his eyes, which were a very pure green, like spring grass—not a color she saw very often. “A young girl, eh? What age?”
“Why is that relevant?”
“Is she about fifteen now?”
Jessica nodded eagerly. Could this possibly be their first clue? “Roughly, as far as she knows. She doesn’t know her birthday.”
Alastair scratched at his overnight growth of black stubble. “Interesting indeed.”
“Why?” Ethan demanded. “Why is this interesting to you? What are you doing out here, all the way from New York, or Scotland or whatever?”
He didn’t answer immediately and the two men engaged in a stubborn stare-down. Finally Jessica stepped in between them.
“This is getting us nowhere. Alastair, we’re trying to find the girl’s family. That’s all we want. We don’t want to get in the way of whatever you’re trying to do. We just wanted to look around and see if we could find any clues. Honestly, I don’t see anything, though. Do you, Ethan?”
He didn’t answer, but she detected the same disappointment in his face.
“And you?” he asked Alastair. “You’re obviously looking for something too. What is it?”
Alastair eyed him carefully. “You said you’re a private investigator?”
“Yes. Hired by the Lost Harbor police chief.”
“Then maybe you can help me too.”
Finally the tension in Ethan’s shoulders released. “This is supposed to be my last job.”
“Then your schedule is clear after this.”
“That depends. What are you after?”
Alastair stepped to the table, which was just a piece of plywood on an old cable spool, and picked up an expensive-looking leather binder. He pulled out a photograph and handed it to Ethan. Ethan tilted it so Jessica could see it too. A couple smiled back at them. The woman was at least twenty years younger than the man, with a fragile, beautiful air about her.
“This is my sister and her husband. They had trouble getting pregnant, so they decided to adopt a newborn. They came here to Alaska because there was a teenage girl who’d decided to give up her baby for adoption. They’d been in communication with her through a private broker. I’m not privy to those details, though I know it was an expensive process. My brother-in-law was quite wealthy so he didn’t care how much it cost them.”
“Was he Anthony Berenson?” Ethan asked.
Alastair’s head jerked up. “So you know his story.”
“Not all of it, but I know the end. I’m sorry.�
�
Of course. Jessica drew in a breath of the musty air. Anthony and Carole Berenson were the couple who had died in the crash of a small private plane. That was one of Maya’s theories, that they were S.G.’s parents.
Alastair’s face tightened, as if he didn’t want condolences. “Thank you. But I don’t consider it the end. The last message I got from my sister was that something had gone wrong with the transfer of the baby and they hadn’t been able to get her. They were flying somewhere else to sort it out. I knew there was more that she wasn’t saying, but she didn’t answer any of my texts after that.”
Jessica exchanged a glance with Ethan. “Was it S.G., do you think?” If so, this information didn’t solve the mystery of S.G.’s family. The Berensons would have been her potential adoptive family, not her birth parents.
“Very likely.” He turned back to Alastair. “Do you know who the baby’s mother was?”
He shook his head. “They were pretty secretive about the whole thing. It was all a bit on the sketchy side.”
“Did they ever mention anything about her that might be a clue? A starting point for a search?”
“All I remember is that she was very young, but that she had a good reason to give up her baby beyond being young. But they never said what. It was something other than the usual family issues.”
Jessica’s heart ached for the poor young woman whose pregnancy had set in motion such a tragic chain of events.
Good thing Ethan was there to keep them focused.
“Do you know if they sent her a baby blanket?” he asked Alastair. “Pink silk? Expensive?”
He startled. “Indeed they did. Family heirloom. Carole wanted her baby to be embraced by the Dougal family from her first moment.”
Jessica felt a physical jolt of excitement. Their first real clue! “That proves it, then. The girl we know is the baby your sister was going to adopt. She still has a little scrap of that blanket.”
A surge of emotion washed across Alastair’s face. He turned away for a moment to wrestle himself back to normal.
Jessica gave Ethan’s hand a squeeze. This was their first real progress, but she felt bad that it had brought Alastair to tears.
“Is that why you’re here? To look for her?” she asked gently.
“No, though I’d be glad to meet her.” He turned back to face them. “I’ve never believed that crash was an accident. But until now, I haven’t had the time to poke around. That’s why I’m here. I want to know what really happened to my sister and Anthony.” He nodded at Ethan. “If you agree to work with me, that’s what we’ll be trying to find out.”
“I’ll think about it. There might not be much to find, fifteen years later.”
“Believe me, I’m aware,” he said dryly. “Every law enforcement official I’ve met with has said the same thing.”
“Back to the case I’m already on, is there anything more you can tell us?”
Alastair flashed a grin through black stubble. “The quicker you solve it, the quicker I get help?”
“Something like that. Their plane took off from the airstrip at Aurora Lodge. Is that where the transfer of the baby was supposed to take place?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know why they chose that location? It’s very pricey for a teenage mother.”
“Because she worked there, of course.”
Ethan and Jessica exchanged another glance. Talk about a clue! This was a huge one.
“What did she do there?”
“That I can’t tell you. I do know that Carole and Tony paid for a midwife to stay at the lodge for the last week of the girl’s pregnancy.”
That was another clue. The midwife must know the identity of the teenage mother. Jessica felt a surge of excitement at how close they were getting to solving this.
But Alastair crushed that hope with his next statement. “However, there’s no record of this midwife. I already tried to find her and came up empty-handed.”
Ethan handed the photo of the Berensons back to Alastair. “Thanks for sharing all this. We were already headed for Aurora Lodge anyway. Good to know we’re on the right track.”
“Why were you headed there? It’s quite a distance, though I can point you toward a shortcut that isn’t on the map.”
“Someone sank our float plane,” Jessica explained. “We’re stranded until we can find cell service.”
Oddly, Alastair perked up when he heard that. “Another plane destroyed. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. I think that’s a clue. Tell me where it is, I want to go there.”
Jessica exchanged another glance with Ethan. This man was taking all kinds of risks out here.
“Look, man,” said Ethan. “Why don’t you come with us to the lodge, and after we wrap things up I’ll come back here with you. Whatever’s going on, it’s dangerous. I’m talking people out here with guns trying to chase us away. Don’t know who or why or how many.”
But Alastair shook his head firmly. “Thanks for the warning. I’ll be careful. I’ve already waited fifteen years. I’m here and I’m not leaving. Show me on your map where you were.”
Jessica reached over her shoulder to pull the topo map from her backpack. Alastair shoved aside the canned goods to clear a space for her to spread it out. They all bent over it while she located the Twisted Heart Lake. “This is the lake where my plane is, but it’s probably completely sunk by now.” She traced the stop-and-start route they’d taken. “This cabin must be here.” So she didn’t lose track of it, she dug her fingernail into the laminate to mark it.
Alastair took out his phone to snap a picture of the map.
“Thank you. I’ll hike out there today. Very carefully,” he added, after a glance from Ethan.
Jessica rolled up the map and stuck it back in her pack. “I have one more question. Do you know anything about a drowning?”
“A drowning? What do you mean?”
“S.G has a maybe-memory about two people being drowned. That’s why we were looking for a cabin near a lake.”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“Is it possible the drowning couple were her real parents and that was the problem that came up with the transfer?” Ethan asked.
Jessica’s heart twisted for S.G. How many sets of parents could one girl lose?
“I dinna know. Carole mentioned nothing about a drowning or any other details about what had gone wrong. I wish I could be more help to you.” He gestured at his stockpile of cans. “I can feed you, however.”
Ethan waved off that offer. “We’re just going to hit the trail. Wouldn’t want to horn in on your corn Niblets and beans.”
The man chuckled. “Aye, mate. When I get home, I’m never touching another canned bean.”
“I liked him,” Jessica declared as they headed for the shortcut trail Alastair had pointed them toward. It would shave half a day off the trip to Aurora Lodge. Since they were getting such an early start, they might be able to make it in one day. They’d decided to try it, and stop if they got too tired.
“You’re so trusting,” Ethan scolded. “You really need to learn to be more cautious around people. Everything he told us could be designed to throw us off.”
“For what purpose? He wants to hire you! Are you going to take the job?”
If he did, he’d be around for a little while longer. She liked that idea.
No. She didn’t. It made no difference to her because they weren’t going to get involved. Or have sex.
Okay, she wasn’t so sure about that part anymore. Even though she was Team Romance, she could pinch hit for Team Sex, couldn’t she?
If ever there was a perfect opportunity to try the Team Sex approach, it would be now. Ethan would be leaving so soon there would be no chance for her to get her heart broken.
A little twisted, maybe, but not broken.
“What do you know about Aurora Lodge?” he asked as they hit the first switchback.
“It’s very expensive to stay th
ere. The only way to reach it is by private plane. Maybe by boat, if you’re willing to hike a couple days. A Japanese chef who retired from a five-star restaurant is in charge of the kitchen. Honestly, that’s about all I know. I’ve never been there. I believe a billionaire built it as a private retreat in the seventies, and it was turned into a lodge about twenty years ago.”
“Do you know any of the people who work there? Where do they get their supplies?”
She shrugged, adjusting the straps of her pack. After their long hike yesterday, her shoulders ached. “I assume they fly everything in from Anchorage. One of my servers worked there as a dishwasher before she came to Sweet Harbor. She said they paid well and that it’s a beautiful location. She said it’s like a palace in the middle of the wilderness.”
The thought of her bakery brought a sharp pang of emotion. Could she really sell the only home she’d ever had? What about her staff, her customers? Her roses and delphiniums?
“I hope you brought your credit card.” Ethan was saying.
She bit her lip. Of course paying for their lodgings would be her responsibility. And then there was the fact that they had no ride back to Lost Harbor. Booking a plane to take them home would be another expense.
But this was for Maya, so whatever it cost, she’d pay it.
“I did bring a credit card.” Her lungs pumped as the incline grew steeper. She spotted blueberry bushes along the trail and wished they had time to stop and graze. “There’s probably enough on it for a night in a broom closet.”
“Beats another night in the woods.”
“Yes, it does. See those blueberries?” She pointed off the trail.
“I’ll take your word for it. What about them?”
“Bears love blueberries. We have to keep talking and stay loud. They avoid people if they can.”
“Got it. You’ll be sick of my voice by the time we get there.”
She doubted that. His voice got sexier and sexier to her. It made her remember last night under the hemlock. Images kept flashing through her at odd moments—like when she became mesmerized with Ethan’s long legs and the slight hitch in his stride up the slope.
Love at First Light (Lost Harbor, Alaska Book 6) Page 16
