Deep in the Alaskan Woods

by Karen Harper

  He and Alex had only known each other just over half a month, so was he an idiot to want her that fast, to fall that hard? They’d had nothing but problems together, but here she was in his home and he was scared that he needed her and wanted her so bad—because he had no idea if she’d stay. And unlike some quick-hit and quick-release guys he knew, he didn’t intend to share himself with a train-passing-in-the-night kind of woman.

  They met in the kitchen where she had opened a can of minestrone soup and was heating it on the stove. They’d been so busy serving everyone a dinner they hadn’t taken time to eat. She’d also pulled some things out of the fridge and cupboards: bread, peanut butter and jelly. It was hardly what he’d love to wine and dine her with whether in Anchorage, New York or the ends of the earth if she’d just let him.

  “Thanks, sweetheart, but I could have fixed stuff for you,” he told her.

  “You’re hungry, and I am, too.”

  “That’s the truth,” he said, steeling himself from putting his arms around her or kissing the nape of her neck as she bent over. He was hungry, not just for food, but the timing could not be worse. A murder nearly on his property, his team temporarily disbanded, maybe under suspicion, and he was desperate to try to woo and win a woman in the wilds? Nuts. Stupid. And suddenly of the utmost importance in his life.

  They ate side by side, talking about the day, about what they might learn tonight before the forensic team left. He’d just added some store-bought cookies and ice cream to their meal when he heard a knock on the front door.

  He went to unlock it. Trooper Kurtz stood there with three men. “They have permission to take both of your prints in your office,” Kurtz told Quinn as Alex came to stand behind him. “I know the drawer where the necklace was and the office layout, so I’ll go with them, show them.”

  “I understand. All right,” Quinn said.

  “And they’ll need your prints and Ms. Collister’s, anyone else’s who might have had access.”

  “As you know, Mary and Sam are in Anchorage. I can call Sam early tomorrow, have them stop by for prints or at least tell you where to find them. Another guest who stayed here last night should be landing at JFK Airport in New York soon, but Josh, who works on-site, is in Mary and Sam’s house tonight. I don’t know how he’ll feel about getting printed.”

  “He works for you, he was on-site for the murder—he’ll have to play ball,” Kurtz said.

  They sat down in the kitchen again to eat their cookies and melting ice cream. In fifteen minutes the forensic people were back. Quinn knew fingerprints weren’t taken with smeared ink anymore, but he wasn’t sure how the current system worked. He soon saw they needed to just press one of their fingers on a silicon reader for a scan, which then displayed all sorts of digital information.

  “The back door that leads from the compound to the forest is padlocked,” Kurtz told them as they prepared to head for Sam’s house to take Josh’s prints. “The other two troopers will stay here tonight and take down all barrier tape in the morning before they head back, but I’m going to ride to Anchorage with these BCI guys.”

  “Oh, sure,” Quinn said, actually wishing he wouldn’t go, as he’d become a sort of security blanket here. Now, it was all on him, including taking care of Alex, and he planned to do just that.

  26

  They were just settling down on the couch before a small hearth fire Quinn had lit when his cell phone rang. Spenser’s ears perked up from where he was lying at the end of the couch with his head on Alex’s leg. Sitting so close to Quinn, Alex could hear the voice and conversation. It was Trooper Kurtz. So soon?

  “Sorry to bother you again,” she overheard Kurtz say. “We’re still en route to Anchorage. Two important pieces of information just came in. But first let me say your employee Josh Spruce was not at his brother’s house, or at least the lights were out and he didn’t answer a lot of knocking.”

  “He told me and his brother he would be there all night.”

  “Maybe he changed his mind and went into town to his place. Tell him he’ll have to come in to BCI in Anchorage, too, just like his brother and sister-in-law.”

  “Yeah, all right, but I need Josh here tomorrow.”

  “Hopefully we won’t take much of his time. But now for the big news. I just got a call from the coroner’s lab that the autopsy on Valerie Chambers is complete. Lab results will take longer to determine traces of drugs or alcohol. But you were absolutely right on what was not cause of death. Not a bear attack, but an initial blow to the back of the head. Those claw marks were added, not postmortem, but when she was unconscious or dying because they were so exact she could not have been moving or struggling against them.”

  “Which probably means her attacker also went down by the stream, maybe not only to inflict those scratches, but to make sure she was dead.”

  “The word probably means that idea is not something I can comment on right now. Additional skull injuries may have also occurred when she hit the ground. Cause of death: blunt force trauma resulting in fatal brain hemorrhage, not the fall.”

  “Terrible. But thanks for sharing that,” Quinn told him.

  The way he looked at her made Alex realize he might know she could hear everything. Her facial reaction must be obvious.

  “And one more thing,” Kurtz was saying. “The owners of the lodge showed me the scratch marks outside Ms. Collister’s room there. As far as I can tell by just looking and diagramming them, they’re almost identical to the claw marks on the deceased’s throat and chest.”

  Quinn darted a look at her. She was aware her eyes had gone wide, but when she tried to look calmer, she only frowned. Quinn reached out with his free hand to grasp hers.

  “I’ll be in touch,” the trooper said. “Here’s the address to send your people to get fingerprints—it will be quick, as you know, but they need to make an effort to get here soon.”

  He read off an Anchorage address, then the phone went dead.

  “You heard it all,” Quinn said.

  She nodded. “But what does it mean, the scratches on the wall matched those on poor Val? A warning to me to leave? Like, Val didn’t, so look what happened to her? I wonder if they took Ryker’s camera into custody.”

  “Yes, before they took him in. Ryker said they planned to check it for prints, DNA, blood. He actually didn’t seem worried about that. Damn, I swear it isn’t Ryker any more than it’s Sam, Mary or Josh.”

  He laid his phone down on the table and put an arm around her, tugging her close to his side. “I should have thought of that the minute Trooper Kurtz mentioned an indentation pattern. You’re...more objective in all this. And bright.”

  “Not really. I feel I’ve tumbled down a rabbit hole of new people, new places, new feelings...and, sadly, a new tragedy beyond my own messed-up life. I feel very involved with Falls Lake—with you and what concerns you.”

  He moved closer. “All this aside, I’d love for you to be more involved with me, and I understand if you’re hesitant—leery with your past and my own messed-up present.”

  He reached up to cup her cheek and chin with his free hand. They looked deep into each other’s eyes. She could actually see the reflection of the fireplace flames in his before he shifted even closer and his lips skimmed, then took, hers in a devouring kiss. Spenser merely shifted his position, when he would have gone berserk back home. But was this home now?

  She put her free hand on the nape of Quinn’s neck, caressing his warm skin and the short hairs there. He slanted his mouth sideways to come even closer, deeper. Somehow, the kiss spiraled upward, onward.

  His free hand stroked her throat, the back of his fingers sliding up and down along her skin. Could he feel her pulse pounding there? He slid his fingers lower, past her collarbone to the valley between her breasts. Every nerve leaped alive as he gently cupped a breast, kept his hand there before going low
er along her rib cage to grip her waist.

  She almost cried when he stopped kissing her, but, his lips close to hers, he whispered, “Our first time—of many, I hope—will be in a safe bed in a safe place we will share. I want you here, right now, in the other room, out by the lake, in our plastic sleeping bags, I don’t care, but ultimately I want you to be safe and be sure. I’ve waited a long time for someone who would be right for me and my life, but I couldn’t stand to have you only to lose you.”

  “Lose me like Val?” she asked. “I mean, because of those scratch marks on the lodge?”

  “No! Not like that. Lose you just because you’d go back home.”

  Breathing so close to him, nose to nose, she told him what she’d been thinking since she arrived here. “I’m starting to wonder if—if this could be home.”

  He nodded, then his lips took hers again. He rained kisses down her throat, while she tipped her head back and his big, warm hand dipped up under her T-shirt and touched her bare skin.

  Somehow, she pulled him closer, pinned him to her, and he slid them down flat on the sofa. Spenser protested with a single bark at having his place taken, but they both ignored him as he jumped to the floor.

  It amazed her how this big man kept his weight off her, even though he had pinned her down. He worried about how she felt, he was careful how he did things, gently at first, so different from Lyle.

  His tongue darted along her throat as she held him to her, trying to pull him closer. She was senseless with desire—the desire to belong to him now and always.

  But as he tugged her T-shirt up, Spenser went wild barking. Oh, no, like he did with Lyle! He liked and trusted Quinn, though...

  But the little Scottie was not barking at them. Quinn lifted his head. She heard knocking on the door.

  “He’s not scolding us, after all,” Quinn said.

  His weight was instantly gone from her and the couch. Looking a bit unsteady, he went to the window and, standing to the side, moved the curtain to peek out.

  “Nothing. No one,” he said as Spenser kept growling and ran into the bedroom, barking again.

  Quinn killed the lights so he could look out another window. Feeling dazed, still dizzy, she got up and went to stand behind him.

  “Oh, man,” he muttered. “It’s Josh with some big boxes, looking like some damn delivery man.”

  He tugged his shirt down as he went to the front door and unlocked it.

  “What’s all that?” Quinn asked. “I heard you weren’t at Sam’s.”

  “Went to the lodge. Suzanne says this stuff came in the mail and is important for Alex. She figured she might want to look through it, see if the stuff she ordered is all there. I said I’d bring it back with me.”

  “Thanks, Josh. That was really kind of you,” Alex told him. “It’s new jars and tube and labels for my products. The other boxes are ingredients I need. I’ll see you get some aftershave or hand lotion for your help.”

  “Can you see me putting on hand lotion, Quinn?” Josh asked, shifting from one foot to the other. “Anyhow, Suzanne said she’ll come see you tomorrow. But some of these are heavy, so she didn’t need to be lugging them around.”

  “I’ll help,” Quinn said, and pushed the door wider open. The men stacked the four cartons in the living room.

  “Had to have a hot shower, after everything,” Josh explained. “I didn’t want to go clear to my place in town. The lodge is crawling with reporters. And I saw they took the trooper tape down here.”

  Alex noticed Quinn sighed in unison with her. “Maybe I should hire a security guard for a while,” he muttered.

  “Oh, one more thing before I finally turn in,” Josh told them. “Meg’s boy, Chip, gave some kinda off-the-cuff interview to one of those Anchorage reporters. The kid said his dead dad is the Falls Lake ghost, flies a plane over the area sometimes, and the paper may run with it. Meg’s trying to talk the guy out of it. She’s pretty shook, so Suzanne said she might not want to leave her tomorrow, but she’d let you know.”

  Alex leaned against the wall, fighting back tears of frustration and exhaustion for Meg, Suze and herself—even for poor Val. Quinn was explaining to Josh that he needed to give his fingerprints to the Anchorage BCI. “Just so they can eliminate all the staff’s prints to focus on who else could have taken Mary’s necklace.”

  “Sure, soon as I get a chance,” Josh said. “How about when this bunch of students leaves day after tomorrow, and I drive some of them to the airport for a few extra bucks like last time? But gotta tell you both something. I hate to say it, to even think it. I see you got a fire going tonight. I thought to do the same right when I got back to Sam’s, so moved some logs off their woodpile to take inside. Behind the pile—on the outside of their bedroom wall, I saw a kind of scratchy carving of something.”

  Words spilled from the usually terse man like a wild waterfall.

  “I mean, it looks pretty much like what got scratched outside your room at the lodge, Alex. I can’t stand to believe it, but if Mary’s off the deep end, she might get off murder charges, anyway, with an insanity plea—like, just be committed to a hospital. But I’m scared Mary might be behind it all, scratches on walls, even scratches on Val, ’cause that woman mocked everything, even the idea of a ghost, even the people drowned in Falls Lake.”

  “No, not Mary!” Quinn insisted. “That would kill Sam.”

  His voice trembled. Alex shook her head. Surely that could not be. But Mary had acted so strange in the woods.

  27

  Early the next morning, someone knocked on the front door of Quinn’s house again. They were having coffee before heading over to help feed the students. Spenser gave a single “yip” as if he knew who it was. Alex supposed it was Josh again, then remembered he was fixing breakfast for the guests and sandwiches to go in backpacks for lunch.

  When Quinn went to the door, she listened intently, though she didn’t want to seem nosy.

  She felt herself blush even now to think how Quinn had walked her to her bedroom door last night, kissed her thoroughly, then turned away so “I won’t be tempted to do more, not right now.”

  “Hold that thought,” she had called to him as he sometimes said, then he’d practically sprinted for his room down the short hall.

  He’d stopped at his bedroom door, grinned and called back, “I’m gonna hold more than that, when we finally get serious private time together—get rid of the students and get rid of some lunatic murderer on the loose. I’ll want to propose some things—important things. Then it’s up to you.”

  Up to you. How different from her past, when the man made all the big decisions.

  That memory fled when Quinn brought Suze into the kitchen. Alex hurried to hug her. “Oh, Suze! Is everything okay? I hear it’s been crazy over there. Sorry to desert you two right now.”

  “And I’m sorry to just crash in without calling. We had to close the shop for a while, but don’t worry. The full house will make up for it—eleven reporters on expense accounts. I see in the hall that Josh got you the supplies, so you can start ‘cooking up’ your products again.”

  “When things quiet down. This is the last day this group of students will be here, so I’m going out with them to the waterfall today.”

  Heading out of the kitchen, Quinn cut in, “I’ll leave you two alone and get ready to go over to the dining hall.”

  “So,” Suze said, stepping back after he left the room, “you two are doing...okay?”

  “Yes. Fine. He—we’re trying to stay sane and under control.”

  “Aha.” She tilted her head and squinted.

  “Really. Concentrating on solving Val’s murder and holding things together here with his students. Don’t tell your guests, but Val died of a blow to the head, not a bear attack.”

  Suze exhaled hard and shook her head. “One thing I wanted to warn yo
u about is that the media mavens may descend on you and Quinn now.”

  “We’re hoping to be on the hike before any of them realize the police tape is gone. And the doors to the compound will be closed and locked—front and back, because they tried a rear assault.”

  “Yeah, so Josh said last night. He just told reporters who asked him anything that he was the lodge handyman, and knew zilch, as he put it. As a matter of fact, he kind of hid from them, ate in the kitchen, which is fine. But when one of them somehow learned his last name was the same as Sam and Mary’s, they looked for him again but he was gone.”

  “I guess it’s good that he’s a man of few words, though he talks more now.”

  “As resentful of Sam—of Quinn, too—as Josh has always seemed, he’s acting protective right now, so maybe that’s one good thing to come out of this mess. That and the fact you and Quinn seem to have found each other.”

  “One thing I’ve learned through my stupid mistakes with Lyle is not to get involved fast, though I guess—in a way—I have.”

  “Well, I wish you luck.”

  Quinn popped his head back in when he was ready to leave. “See you at the dining hall, Alex, and see you later, Suzanne! Josh is doling out cereal, fruit and Danish rolls. We’re really missing Mary’s touch in the kitchen.”

  Alex heard his phone sound, the melody of an old John Denver song about a night in a forest.

  “Alex?” Suze’s voice cut in. “Are you okay?”

  “Holding up. And wishing I were there to help you steady Meg.”

  Quinn appeared in the kitchen doorway yet again. “You won’t believe this. That was Geoff. I’m invited to be on that late-morning network television program Gab Fest this Thursday to discuss wilderness training and a bit about tracking. Apparently there’s a big audience interested in the subject. If Geoff hadn’t already accepted for me, I would have tried to postpone it, but it’s great publicity.”