Alaskan Showdown

by Sarah Varland

  He was pretty sure that she’d have walked out by now if it wasn’t her town house.

  Levi nodded. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel that way.”

  She eyed him, finished making the coffee without a word and then set the two mugs down on the table.

  “So...coffee?”

  He nodded.

  She got the carafe, poured out the coffee, then sat. “What’s the plan?”

  “I don’t think we should try to do much tonight.” This wasn’t his usual way of doing things—telling people to take some time, to rest. When he was on a case, he was driven. Focused. Determined. And that had helped him in the past. Professionally, anyway.

  Personally...

  It had been what his ex-wife had blamed all their struggles on.

  He couldn’t be trying to correct for that now, right? What did it matter if Adriana thought he was hyperfocused? He wasn’t trying to start any kind of relationship with her. And besides, she’d made it clear more than once that she didn’t have regard for his focus at all. Actually, she’d looked at him judgmentally before when he’d tried to affect a laid-back attitude.

  She let cases affect her personally. That much was obvious after today. He couldn’t do that, not the way she did, and expect to keep doing this job. He needed to have some emotional distance.

  “Okay.” She just nodded, not seeming to mind either way.

  Levi didn’t comment. No need to stir anything up if they were both happy.

  “So I should probably let you get home, then, huh?” Adriana took a sip of her coffee and then stood, moving back toward her coffee area. “I’ve got a to-go cup here somewhere.”

  Levi stayed quiet again. That hadn’t been what he was going for, but if she didn’t want him here...

  He stood up. “I’ll head home. You’re okay here on your own?”

  She nodded.

  Should he tell her that he’d already talked to Judah, who had promised he’d stay in the driveway in a patrol car that night? It would be foolish for Levi to sit on her house when he had a target on his back.

  But there wasn’t any chance he was leaving her unprotected.

  Finally, honesty won out. Adriana wouldn’t appreciate things being kept from her. And on a practical level, she was likely to notice a car in her driveway. Might as well explain now.

  “An officer will be in your driveway all night, keeping an eye on things. You should be safe.”

  It was that should be that was going to make it hard for him to sleep. If he knew her better, he might ask to crash on her couch downstairs, just to reassure himself. At the moment, though, it made more sense to let his brother handle it. He’d have to just trust someone else to keep an eye on her.

  She met his gaze then, but rather than argue, she just nodded. Her expression softened, ever so slightly, and he wondered if she was regretting essentially kicking him out.

  “So we’re good?” she asked as she handed him the coffee.

  It was probably as close to an apology for the brush-off that he was going to get. And that was fine. He didn’t deserve one, really. He just couldn’t help that the way she’d clammed up on him and asked him to leave had hurt his feelings some.

  He nodded. “We’re good.”

  He took the coffee from her and headed to his car, waving to Judah as he climbed into his cruiser.

  Tomorrow they’d compile a list of women who’d gone missing between the first wave of serial-killer cases and the second. There had been some talk at the time of whether or not those disappearances could have been linked to the serial killer, but nothing conclusively linked them. In Alaska, people went missing often, sometimes from trips into the wilderness gone wrong, with no foul play.

  With the help of Adriana and her dog, they might be able to find a lead there.

  The possibilities were bright enough that he almost didn’t want to go to sleep. But if he didn’t, he wouldn’t be able to give his best to this case.

  And he needed to give it his best or Adriana would be in danger.

  And that was unacceptable.

  * * *

  Darkness hadn’t fully come until Levi left, well after dinner. Adriana always appreciated that even though darkness had finally come to Alaska at night after several months of mostly daylight, they still had more daylight than many other parts of the country in mid-September.

  Now, though, it was after ten and she was trying to go to sleep. The darkness outside was heavy. Inky-black and suffocating.

  But not suffocating the fear that had come when night had fallen.

  Adriana always slept with her blinds open and had crawled in bed with them that way tonight. Now, having tried to sleep for a long half hour, she stood up, walked to the window and pulled them down.

  Having an officer in her driveway reassured her somewhat.

  But...what if the shooter was still out there?

  Murder was difficult enough to imagine. But the concept of a serial killer, someone who committed a crime over and over...

  She shuddered and returned to bed. Tried to pull the covers up higher, but Blue and Babe were lying on them. She patted the spot next to her and the dogs moved closer, giving her a chance to yank at the covers.

  She relaxed a little, her pets having moved closer. But her eyes kept drifting to the window. How could someone commit crimes like this? And how could she have gotten involved?

  It was one thing to try to get some kind of closure to families. Another to help bring a serial killer to justice.

  She wasn’t ready for this.

  Or was she?

  Of course, she thought as she rolled over, giving up would prove that Levi had been right to doubt her. It would be succumbing to fear.

  And Adriana didn’t do that.

  Ever.

  She sighed. Turned over again. And prayed morning would come quickly, and with it, some kind of resolution that would make this case easy to solve.

  She wanted to be free from this fear. And the only way to do that was to figure out who was behind these murders and put them in prison.

  * * *

  By the time morning finally came, Adriana had managed to sleep some. She hesitantly walked down the stairs, let her dogs into the backyard to do their morning business and then went back inside to make coffee.

  Her unease from the night before had been partially chased away by the light, but only partially. They’d been shot at it in broad daylight twice yesterday.

  Her cell phone beeped a text-message alert as she sipped her coffee.

  In your driveway now. Let me know when you’re awake and ready—Levi

  She glanced down at her sweatpants and sweatshirt.

  No point in pretending she was the kind of girl who woke up looking like she’d stepped out of some kind of fashion magazine.

  I’ve got coffee on if you want it, she texted back and waited. Five minutes later he was knocking on the door.

  “Ready for today?”

  “As I can be.” She hoped her smile made up for the uncertainty of her words. “What’s the plan?”

  “How about we talk about it while we drink that coffee you mentioned? I ran out of the house this morning so I’d appreciate it.”

  “Sure.” Was it her imagination or was her heart beating a little faster than it should have been?

  She walked to the coffee maker and poured him a cup, her mind racing as she tried to imagine what today was going to look like. She’d already talked to Blue about the day; while some people would probably think it was strange to talk to a dog, Blue was her partner. Besides, she had read some study saying dogs knew thousands of words.

  “I thought we’d start off by going to some of the burial sites to see if there’s further evidence buried there that we missed and see if we can find anything else...with your dog.” He a
dded the last part like it was necessary. Adriana knew her K9 was the valuable one here and it made her laugh. Levi’s face turned red. A man who blushed. Interesting. She didn’t mind that at all.

  Clearly he felt things much more deeply than she’d ever thought he did.

  “I didn’t mean you aren’t a necessary part of the search...”

  As well trained as Blue was, she worked with Adriana, who, as her handler, was the one with the skills to assess her cues and make human judgment calls on what they might mean. It was part of why she’d been drawn to dog handling when she’d decided to get involved in SAR work after Robert’s death. She figured that being able to help people—and to do that with animals she loved—would bring her closure. Adriana might not be as cute as her dog, but she was essential to the team. She knew it well enough not to need the reassurance, though the way he was stumbling over himself was sort of cute.

  “Relax, Levi. You’re fine.” She sat back down and took a sip of her coffee. “Do you have any more plans for finding them? Like, any kind of system for how to canvass those areas?”

  He shook his head and had the good grace to look a little embarrassed. She appreciated that. He wasn’t running the search the way she would and it was nice that he knew that.

  “So rather than do that...” She wasn’t sure how he’d react to her idea, but she’d thought about it last night and the idea wouldn’t go away, so it might be one that was worth considering. “What if we plotted out where you’ve found all the bodies so far? See what I mean? Like a map that shows the killer’s preferred burial locations—they were all buried, right?” She realized she wasn’t sure.

  He nodded, confirming her assumption. Other than the one they’d found yesterday in the lake. She wondered what it could mean, that the killer had started deviating from his pattern of burying his victims, or that something had been different about this murder.

  “So if they’re all buried, besides that one, and you said not to draw conclusions from one outlier,” she continued, doing her best not to let her mind settle on the memories of the empty expanse of lake and a water-logged body, “then I think it would be useful to see them on a map. The killer must have had some kind of pattern, right?”

  Levi seemed to consider it for a minute. “I can see what you’re saying. It’s different from our usual approach.” He was frowning now, his eyebrows pulled together, maybe in concentration, maybe in frustration. Adriana didn’t know him well enough to be able to tell.

  “Is it worth it, though?” she asked it in a soft voice as she took another sip of coffee, and he nodded almost immediately.

  “Yes.” Levi kept nodding. “Yes, I think it is.” He set down his coffee mug. “Okay, do you have a piece of paper? I like to visualize things.”

  Adriana reached for her iPad, which was sitting on the counter, and handed it to him. It was open to one of her favorite drawing-and-plotting apps.

  He raised his eyebrows. “Do you have any of the old-fashioned kind of paper that comes with a pencil?”

  She smirked. Handed him the white Apple Pencil.

  He shook his head. “Okay...” His fingers looked adorably clumsy—she noticed without wanting to. The adorable part, anyway. Finally, she laughed, stood, walked to one of her kitchen drawers and pulled out a yellow legal pad and an actual pencil.

  “Thanks.” He laughed. “We aren’t exactly that tech friendly at Raven Pass PD, so my tech skills are behind.”

  “We use it when it’s useful.” Adriana shrugged. “Sometimes it’s not and the old-fashioned way is better, but I do like having it.”

  “I’ll take a legal pad any day.”

  “There’s probably an app for that.” She laughed.

  Levi started sketching out a rough map: just the main road into Raven Pass, some general areas, like parks, shops, trailheads and hiking trails. “It’s not superdetailed,” he explained, “but I think it’ll give us a start, anyway, to see if there are any obvious clusters, features, things like that.”

  “Features?” She knew the word, clearly, but wasn’t sure what he meant in that context.

  “Like sometimes killers will bury bodies next to water, or by a certain kind of tree—things like that can be part of a signature or MO.”

  Adriana nodded. She hadn’t known that. “Makes sense. So where were the bodies?”

  “Here...” He marked one X. Then another. “Here... Here.”

  “Okay, and the women who disappeared and whose bodies were not found? The ones you suspect could be tied to the case but aren’t sure about? Those women went missing in between the first killing spree and this most recent one, right?”

  Levi nodded. “I have those details back at the police department.” He glanced down at her sweatpants. Adriana looked at him, a smile tugging at the corners of her face as she waited for his comment.

  “Are you, uh, ready to go?”

  Bless his heart. He was trying so hard not to ask the obvious question, which was “Are you wearing that?” Half of her wondered if he’d grown up with sisters to know that such a question wasn’t a good idea, or if he was just an extraordinarily smart man.

  “I do have to go change first,” she told him, letting a small smile creep up.

  He laughed. Not a small laugh, but a full-out loud one, like he was zero percent ashamed of his humor.

  “Sorry,” he said again, but unlike earlier, he didn’t seem sorry. Actually, since she’d suggested different search techniques, the mood between them had shifted. Like he was finally comfortable working with her, like they might be part of a team.

  Huh.

  She was already part of the search-and-rescue team, but it was different than this, the respect she saw in his eyes now.

  Why did Levi’s opinion matter so much?

  “I’ll be back in a minute.” She took a long, last sip of coffee and hurried up the stairs, without waiting to hear what else Levi had to say.

  Suddenly the idea of spending all day today with him, not to mention the many more days it would take for them to solve this case, seemed overwhelming. How was she supposed to keep a grip on these feelings, whatever they were, when they were in such close proximity so often?

  She wasn’t sorry she’d volunteered, though. Adriana needed to remember that, and no matter how distracting Levi was, she needed to keep her eyes focused on what they were doing.

  Stopping the killer before anyone else became the next victim. Getting a criminal behind bars.

  Making their world safe again.

  Yes, that should be enough to keep her focused. Even with a distractingly handsome officer on the case with her.

  SIX

  Sitting in Adriana’s kitchen drinking coffee she’d made was a little surreal, since up until yesterday they’d had very few conversations with each other. It had always seemed like she’d avoided talking to him.

  All he knew was that he liked how things were now and he had no desire to go back to the strained relationship they’d had before.

  Interesting.

  He took another sip of coffee. His phone beeped and he pulled it out to check it.

  Jim, his old partner.

  Heard you had some excitement yesterday. Everything all right?

  What did he want to say to him? Levi respected the years the man had put into the case, but Jim wasn’t an officer anymore and it wasn’t appropriate to discuss it the same way he would have in the past.

  Maybe that was the wrong way to think of it. Levi was still stinging from yesterday’s close call, and the fewer people who knew about the situation, the better.

  It was strange, counting his old partner as one of the people he couldn’t talk to, though.

  And probably an overreaction. But, Levi justified, part of why Jim had retired had been to spend more time with family. He knew from the man’s vague comments that he and his wife of s
omething like forty years had been through some rough patches. Likely due to the stress that police officers’ jobs put on their marriages.

  Everything’s okay. Gotta have excitement now and then to have a job and some of us can’t afford to retire yet.

  Levi sent the message and smiled to himself. Jim’s dry sense of humor had rubbed off, which was just fine with him. It was standard police-officer humor.

  His brother’s face then came to mind. Half the time he wasn’t sure Judah had a sense of humor.

  Or it might just be that Judah was still hurting from the rough time he’d gone through years ago, when his fiancée had died. Part of him thought he should ask about that, but lately he didn’t feel like he knew his brother well enough to know what would help him or how he’d respond to things.

  No, better to let it go. Continue with this weirdly cordial relationship they’d had since Levi moved up here. Levi sure didn’t want Judah prying into his past relationship with his ex-wife, so maybe Levi owed it to him to let him grieve in peace, if that was what had caused his moodiness lately.

  “I’m ready.” Adriana took the last few steps quickly and then skidded a little in her socked feet on the hard floor.

  Her dark hair swung as she skidded and her arms flailed out to catch herself, and then she turned to him with a grin.

  He had to muffle another smile. He did that a lot with her, he was noticing. Funny, for someone who’d accused him of being too lighthearted about his work, she was pretty funny and easygoing herself.

  * * *

  He took that thought back just over an hour later. They’d loaded into his car—him, Adriana and her dog Blue—and started for his office. There they’d picked up his files and case notes, and then they’d headed to the location where the first body of the most recent string of murders had been found. If Levi was correct, that would make it the fourth body out of eight. Three from the first string of killings, four from the more recent and now Lara Jones. Not to mention the gap in time where Levi was still wondering if more women could have been killed whose bodies just hadn’t been discovered. He had told Adriana not to jump to conclusions about the burial location changing with Lara Jones. But if they found another body that hadn’t been buried, that would change.