Alaskan Showdown

by Sarah Varland

  But not a lot. He’d been clear that this was the last try. Levi had to make the most of it.

  All of that was making him consider Adriana’s offer. Another reason he’d wanted to talk to her in person. He couldn’t gauge her facial expressions over the phone, or read her body language.

  He suspected several other undiscovered bodies were still out there, and Adriana could help him find them. Not everyone missing had a point last seen in their case file, so there might be more women who could have gone missing from coffee shops but not been added to his list to investigate. Even though Lara hadn’t disappeared from a coffee shop, Levi didn’t think one deviation was enough to say that the killer had deviated from his or her MO. Rather, it suggested that killing Lara Jones might not have been preplanned. He wouldn’t know till he investigated more. There were still a lot of variables. But if accepting Adriana’s offer of help meant he found more of the bodies he suspected were out there, then he’d have several potential chances to catch the killer in a mistake, forensically speaking, or in relation to DNA. One mistake. That was all it would take to find the kind of evidence that could be invaluable.

  Levi couldn’t give up. Not yet.

  He parked his squad car, climbed out and locked the doors, then walked toward Adriana’s front door.

  She opened it before he could knock. “Come in.”

  Her hair was wet—she must have showered right when she got home and he couldn’t blame her for it. When he had days like this a shower was the second thing he did, the first being a really long run while he prayed and asked God why He let bad things happen to good people.

  “Thanks.” He stepped in and reached down to take his shoes off.

  “I’m not from here. It makes sense to me in the winter when our boots are covered in snow, or mud, but during the rest of the year I figure that’s what the vacuum is for.” She gestured to a nice model vacuum that sat behind the front door.

  Levi had grown up in Anchorage, so he understood Alaskan culture well and the way it dictated taking off shoes when entering a house.

  “Thanks for letting me come over,” he said, not sure how to fill the awkward silence. His mind was tangled already because she was even prettier than she’d been earlier and he’d never noticed before, and he didn’t understand why he was noticing now.

  “So she wasn’t just a missing hiker, was she?” Adriana asked as she walked out of the room. Levi followed her. She was heading for the kitchen and he could hear a coffee maker percolating.

  If he drank another cup of coffee he’d probably start to see noises, after all the caffeine he’d had that day already. But if she was making it he wasn’t going to turn it down. The machine made noises in the background as the coffee continued brewing.

  “I don’t think Lara Jones was just a missing hiker.” He answered as honestly as he could.

  Adriana nodded, then turned away from him. He wished he could see her face to read her facial expressions. He stepped toward her and reached out a hand, though he didn’t know why.

  She stepped away and opened up a cabinet that was crammed full with coffee mugs stuffed beside each other, on top of each other, as full as it could possibly be without them all falling. “Are you going to tell me more, or did you have questions? I’m not quite sure how this works.”

  She tossed a glance back at him and Levi just stood there, met her eyes.

  Adriana stopped moving. Her eyes widened as their gazes connected and held there, the pull between them almost palpable, at least to Levi.

  He swallowed hard.

  He didn’t even know how to explain what he could feel passing between them. Levi felt more seen than he had ever before. It was an awkward, exhilarating closeness they shouldn’t have felt because they barely knew each other. But they’d shared so much earlier when she was having her panic attack, and then they’d been shot at...

  “Is she why you were shot at?”

  Her question confirmed that letting her help him was a good choice. Adriana was smart, observant to the point that he almost wished she’d been a little less good at putting pieces together.

  “I believe so.” He nodded, still feeling the power of her gaze on his. “Yes.”

  “You need to let me help you, then.” She said it quietly, then turned away, breaking whatever strange moment had happened between them, when they’d been fully facing each other. She reached for the full coffee carafe, grabbed a mug out of the cabinet and handed it to him. “Coffee?” she asked as she filled two cups.

  “Thanks.” He accepted the mug the offered and took a sip. Much stronger than he usually made, but this wasn’t a woman who did anything halfway or average. Definitely not someone who tended toward “weak” as a word that described either her or her coffee, apparently.

  He opened his mouth to continue their conversation and she abruptly moved toward the living room.

  “Let’s sit.”

  “Okay.” He followed her into the other room, then waited while she sat down. He stayed quiet until she finally looked up at him.

  “How are you doing?” He kept his voice calm as he sat. “How are you really doing?”

  This time, rather than look away, she met his gaze head-on. “I’ve been better. This afternoon wasn’t like me, I hope you know that. I don’t usually...” She trailed off.

  “I know.” And he did. Especially after his relationship with Melissa had fallen apart, Levi knew what it was like to put on an “I’m okay” face for the world. Someone could only keep that up for so long before it cracked.

  Especially someone who saw people at their worst like he so often did; she must in her job, also. It was emotionally exhausting, making having a relationship even harder than it was for most people.

  He watched Adriana’s expression.

  She seemed to appreciate his understanding, but something still seemed to be on her mind, so he waited.

  “I don’t know what else to say,” she finally confessed with a shrug that she probably didn’t realize was as cute as it was. “I’m embarrassed. But if we are going to be working together, I want to clear the air.”

  “Are we going to be working together?”

  “I would like to.”

  He still needed to know. So he asked. “But why?”

  “Because...” She took a long sip of coffee and turned her head to look out the window. Her gaze was pensive, and then her eyes narrowed. Became more focused.

  “What?” He leaned forward, turned to look at whatever she saw.

  “Nothing. I...I’m stressed from today is all, I think.”

  Levi sat back, exhaled. If that was true, he had no business dragging her into this investigation. Today, he feared, was only a glimpse of what the next few weeks or months could hold. If every discovery hit Adriana as hard emotionally as today had, he didn’t think he could do that to her. Or her dog, for that matter.

  Or himself. Seeing her hurt... It shouldn’t affect him so much. They were casual friends at best.

  But something about today had made it feel like more than that. Not romantically, though he was undoubtedly attracted to her. But on a deeper level than just friends. Like they knew each other somehow, in a way that mattered.

  It would be better for both of them if he’d just ask his questions about the body she’d found and leave. They wouldn’t get any closer, there would be no awkwardly charged moments like whatever had happened in the kitchen.

  “Adriana...”

  Glass from a window shattered on the living-room floor just as he heard the pop of gunfire.

  And Adriana fell to the floor.

  * * *

  Two times in one day. She’d been shot at twice in one day.

  Adriana was pretty sure she could count this one as being “at” her because it was her couch that was likely going to have a hole in it. Or her wall or floor or someth
ing. She hadn’t seen where the first bullet hit; she’d just fallen to the ground as soon as she heard the glass breaking. Levi had cried out like she’d been shot and she’d been too frozen to reassure him or say anything until she felt his weight pressing on her, sheltering her, and then she managed to say “I’m okay,” though it did nothing to make him move.

  She’d shut her dogs in her bedroom before, when she’d heard Levi pull up; that was the one positive aspect of this situation. They were safe.

  Herself? She couldn’t say the same for sure. More bullets flew, she didn’t know how many. The shots were loud, echoing. A rifle, she thought. She’d been around enough of them in her life, when her parents were in the military.

  She huddled closer to the couch, desperate for some kind of cover and not sure where to go to find it.

  “Can you crawl to the other room if I move?” Levi’s voice was breathless. Adriana nodded, then realized he might not be looking at her. He was probably looking out the window. The one she’d said just minutes before didn’t have anything interesting out of it. She’d blamed her imagination rather than her senses and it had nearly cost them both their lives.

  “Yes,” she said, swallowing hard.

  “Ready? Go.” He lifted himself up and they crawled together for the door to the kitchen. One more shot was fired and Levi heard a lamp fall off the table beside Adriana’s couch. He made a note to have the crime-scene team check that spot for bullet casings.

  The gunshots stopped. There evidently were no more easily available targets.

  Levi was already pulling his phone out of his pocket. She listened as he reported the incident to the police department, his voice out of breath like he’d been running, but not betraying a hint of emotion or terror.

  He must feel nothing like she felt. Her heart was fleeing her chest, headed in a dead sprint toward somewhere very far from here and bodies in lakes and bullets and men who were confusing and comforting all at the same time.

  Or... She studied him closer. Could it be that having a happy-go-lucky personality was how he dealt with being in situations like this?

  She might have misjudged him.

  “They’ll be here as soon as they can be.” He looked to her as soon as he ended the call. “You okay? I’m going to stay in here with you until my team gets here. Tempting as it is to go straight outside and try to see if the shooter is still there, it would be foolish and it would leave you alone. I’m not going to do that.”

  That he’d ask her that question meant a lot. And further shattered her Levi-doesn’t-care-about-anything thoughts. Yes, she’d certainly misjudged him.

  Was she okay? That had been his question.

  Would she ever be again?

  How much could one person take?

  She started to cry. Again.

  “Hey, it’s okay.”

  She braced herself for him to wipe her tears, to tell her to stop. Robert always had done that, and she’d loved him for not wanting her to hurt. It had been sweet.

  “Go ahead and cry. It’s been an awful day.”

  Again, this man was not what she expected or understood. He wanted her to cry? She didn’t understand, but cry she did, over everything she could think of and none of it all at the same time. She was shaking, her body drained of energy from the shock. Her living room had become a crime scene.

  Whoever had been after Levi was after her now, too.

  “At this point, I’m...already...involved.” She choked the words out between sobs.

  “I know.” He reached his arms out for her and she didn’t protest, but scooted closer on the floor and leaned toward him. He wrapped her upper body in his arms—arms that clearly spent time at the gym or rock climbing, she wasn’t sure which—and she felt herself finally relax.

  “Thank you,” she said to him.

  “We really should stop meeting like this, though,” he joked. There was the Levi that drove her crazy when they searched together on occasion. The unflappable guy whose never-takes-things-seriously attitude usually infuriated her.

  She knew now, though, that it wasn’t that he didn’t feel things as deeply or take things as seriously.

  It was just that he held things in and dealt with them differently.

  Interesting. She wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

  “What happens now?”

  “The department will send guys here to process the scene, check if the shooter’s still out there and see if we can gather any evidence or ballistics. They should be able to find the bullets in the living room.”

  “But it’s...” She couldn’t make herself say the rest.

  “The serial killer. I think so. Or someone he’s sent to do his dirty work. It’s hard to say.” Levi shrugged like he didn’t have the weight of the world on his shoulders.

  “So if I’m working with you, tell me what I need to know. About this guy, I mean. What are we dealing with?”

  Levi took a deep breath. “Three years ago...well, let me explain. We thought the case started three years ago. I was looking through some cold cases recently and think it may have started before that... But I’ll tell you about the recent ones first. Three years ago, a woman disappeared from a coffee shop here in Raven Pass.”

  “Disappeared? You don’t disappear from a restaurant, Levi. Maybe from the woods, or from somewhere isolated, but you don’t leave a coffee shop without leaving witnesses to your disappearance.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know how. I just know it’s true. No one in the shop remembers noticing anything out of the ordinary. People saw the victim there, but didn’t notice anything else.”

  She frowned. “Okay, go on.”

  “She disappeared from a coffee shop. Later she was found dead. A few months later, the same thing—another woman, same coffee shop. Then a similar disappearance from a little coffee place in Girdwood. Then one at a diner in Hope that served coffee and was the closest thing the town had to a coffee shop.”

  Adriana was already frowning. “So someone...kills women that were last seen at coffee shops?” She shook her head. Why?

  “Serial killers are tricky,” he began. “They’re not killing in fits of passion or rage, like so many murderers. They’re more purposeful and calculated than that. Some of them are trying to right what they believe to be societal wrongs. Some of them are transferring feelings of rage toward someone to other people who look like them. Some of them killed once, maybe even by accident, and now feel compelled to repeat it.”

  “But Lara Jones wasn’t last seen at a coffee shop.” Adriana commented.

  “No.”

  “So the killer is changing his MO, or...?”

  Levi shook his head. “I’m not jumping to conclusions yet. It’s possible that they’re shifting a pattern, but this could also just be an outlier. There are other reasons that could explain why the killer deviated from the pattern. They’re difficult to figure out or box in.”

  He shrugged again, but Adriana shuddered.

  Whoever was after Levi was a madman, Adriana realized before Levi was even though explaining. The killer’s possible motives were nothing short of insanity. Did she want to get involved in such a miry mess?

  At the same time, could she do otherwise?

  Still, the magnitude of the danger was growing clearer the longer Levi talked. This person had killed multiple times not because he—or she—was angry, but because he believed somehow he was in the right. He’d even tried to kill her and Levi.

  Heinous madness.

  And Adriana was offering to try to track him down by uncovering his past sins right in front of his eyes, unburying corpses he’d thought were dealt with.

  God help me, she prayed, and meant it. Because she felt like she was staring death in the face. And to live, she was going to need help from beyond herself.

  FOUR

 
; It didn’t take long for Judah to show up. For all their budget woes, Raven Pass PD had excellent response times. Although the fact that it was Judah’s younger brother who’d been shot at—twice now today—might account for the speedy arrival. All Levi knew was that within five minutes of calling the station, Judah was banging on Adriana’s front door.

  “What happened? And what are you mixed up in?”

  There was that big-brother tone. Levi shrugged it off with a grin, or at least tried. The truth was it got tiring, having his sibling looking over his shoulder all the time, treating him like, well, a kid.

  Maybe it was why he worked so hard, why he’d felt his whole life like he had something to prove.

  “My serial-killer case just heated up,” Levi said.

  “That’s an understatement.” Adriana stepped up beside him. “I’m glad the case won’t go cold, though. How awful for families, not to have that closure.”

  It felt nice to have her stand next to him while he talked to his brother.

  As much as he wanted this case solved and could see huge value in her helping him find bodies, he didn’t want her in danger. If he could go back, not talk to her today at all and keep her safe instead, he would in a heartbeat. No case was worth her safety.

  As soon as the thought materialized, it hit him like a punch to the gut, but he shook it away. Of course he wouldn’t want her hurt. He would feel that way about any civilian getting involved in a case, right?

  Wrong. But he could try to deny that Adriana meant a lot to him for a little longer. Maybe.

  But the decision about her being involved or not had been taken out of his hands.

  Now what did he do?

  “The shots came from where?” Judah looked around for evidence of the attack.

  “We were back there in the living room, but they came through the window. So I’d say the backyard,” Levi answered. Adriana started that way and Judah followed. Levi brought up the rear, trying to work out the best way out of this situation he’d unwittingly placed Adriana in.