Alaskan Showdown

by Sarah Varland

  “Mrs. Marston?” Levi held out a hand, and Adriana noticed not for the first time how much of an impression he made in his tan Raven Pass Police Department uniform. She’d seen him in it before, obviously. But he didn’t wear it every time he worked. She guessed an occasion like this called for it, to lend some legitimacy to their coming by, and maybe to reassure people, too. That the police were working on things. That their daughter’s killer wasn’t going to be left to roam free.

  Mrs. Marston’s face relaxed into something resembling trust as she took in Levi’s appearance and nodded her head. Her shoulders relaxed, like his being here was a reassurance in and of itself.

  “You must be Officer Wicks. Thank you for coming by. We are glad to get to talk to you. My husband is upstairs and should be down in a few minutes.”

  The words, about being glad they could talk to him, struck Adriana as odd. They wanted to talk about things? Maybe some people did better when they talked about what was hurting them.

  “This is Adriana Steele. She’s part of the Raven Pass SAR team—search and rescue—and her dog was responsible for finding your daughter’s body.”

  She felt herself bristle, though she held out her hand and attempted a smile. Surely learning that Blue had discovered the body wouldn’t bring the woman joy the way search dogs did when they found people who were alive and had just been waiting for rescue. Maybe it was silly to feel so overprotective of her dogs, but she didn’t want anyone thinking badly of them.

  “We are so thankful for you, dear. And your dog. To have had no closure...” She stopped talking, then took a shuddery breath and sniffed. “We are glad you do what you do. What a difficult job.”

  The woman’s words sounded genuine, despite the fact that they were foreign to Adriana.

  “Thank you.”

  It was all she could say, the only words she could force from her lips. She tried another small smile and prayed that Levi would take the lead with the conversation here because being in a room this heavy, with grief that didn’t feel suffocating or dark, was confusing her.

  “Sorry about that. I’m Dave Marston.” A man about the same age and height as his wife came down the stairs and walked toward them, holding out his hand for both of them to shake.

  “Thanks for meeting with us,” Levi said.

  The man’s face was a little harder to read, but he nodded. “Thank you for coming by.”

  Strange, how everyone handled grief in different ways.

  “Please, come in and sit. Would anyone like coffee?”

  Adriana couldn’t drink anything. Not right now, when she could barely even focus on taking breaths, in and out.

  “I’m okay, thank you,” she said, wondering if that counted as a lie.

  Levi glanced at her, a strange sideways glance.

  “I would love a cup,” he answered, still looking as relaxed as if they were...well, anywhere but here.

  Mrs. Marston poured it for him and then they sat in the living room. Adriana sat down first, at one end of a couch, and Levi sat beside her. Not on the other end, as she would have expected, but right beside her. Close enough to reach out to for support, except she wouldn’t do that, and shouldn’t even think that way.

  She wasn’t the only one who had a past, that much was clear to her. Something had happened to Levi to make him hesitant to trust.

  And despite the fact that it wasn’t her business, not as someone who only occasionally saw him in a work capacity, Adriana wanted to know.

  She felt awareness of him spread through the blush on her cheeks, and she swallowed hard.

  Levi cleared his throat and began. “Mr. and Mrs. Marston, I wanted to say first that we are sorry for your loss.”

  They both nodded. “Thank you.”

  Levi took another sip of coffee. “Your daughter seems like she was a wonderful person. I looked at her social-media profiles a bit last night. You were really blessed with her, I think.”

  What on earth? Did he think this was a good tactic, reminding them of all they had lost? Adriana felt herself pull away again. Only internally. Externally they were still sitting almost close enough to touch.

  But how could he talk about Raina like this, like she was still there, sitting in the living room with them, instead of in a morgue somewhere, probably midautopsy? Gone forever.

  Adriana was not surprised at all to watch Mrs. Marston’s eyes pool with unshed tears. But she was surprised at what she said. “Thank you. Thank you for seeing her as more than a victim, and for your words. So many people...” The tears fell now. “So many people haven’t said anything.”

  “They don’t know what to say,” Mr. Marston said to his wife, in a tone that made it sound like this was something he’d said before.

  “I know, but...” She sniffed again. “Thank you.”

  Levi nodded. His face remained unreadable, but Adriana wondered how he did this. And then found herself wondering how often he did this. She’d never once considered the feelings of the law-enforcement officers who had to deliver bad news over and over, who saw people on their worst days.

  But they had to be made of something special, or gifted by God in some way. She usually slipped away before other people got involved, in the guise of Blue needing a break.

  Truly, it was Adriana who wouldn’t stand that close to death for too long without feeling it threaten to overtake her hope.

  Her dog held it together better than she did.

  She didn’t hear most of what was said for the next ten minutes. She tried—she really did. But she was overwhelmed. Why had this all started to affect her so much? For years, she’d been fine.

  She wanted to pull out her phone and text someone. Ellie, maybe. While Adriana had held herself at arm’s length from the other members of her SAR team, she and Ellie had connected a bit more. Maybe because Adriana was under the impression that Ellie was hiding things from her past also. Not bad things, but personal ones.

  Shadows. Darkness.

  Oh, how familiar Adriana was with those.

  Okay, no, she hadn’t “dealt” with her feelings like some friends had suggested. She hadn’t talked to a counselor, or anyone who didn’t have four legs and a tail. She was pretty sure the late-night conversations she had with her dogs weren’t what her friends had in mind.

  “Can you tell me more about your daughter? Any friends she had that might help us track down her killer, places she hung out?” Adriana heard Levi ask the questions as she tried to focus back in.

  Something flickered on the face of both Marstons.

  Something, some internal nudge, told her that these people held the answers she was looking for. They were facing death without flinching, facing loss and still looking ahead to their future.

  As she held her breath and waited for their answer, she wondered for the first time if one day she could get there, too. To a point where she could only look forward and not be constantly pulled back to her past.

  To be here, to be listening to them, was like being emotionally unprotected. Vulnerable.

  And sitting next to Levi made that feel even truer. The man had seen her at her worst more than anyone else had.

  But nevertheless, Adriana was ready. She leaned forward to listen.

  Ready, maybe for the first time, to find out how to move forward with her own life—and the case itself.

  NINE

  “We’ve told the police everything already, when Officer Koser and Officer Smith came by right after they positively identified her body,” Mr. Marston began, after clearing his throat, “but something about the way you asked reminded me they mostly asked about where she was the day she disappeared.”

  Levi had read the reports already. Raina had been at work, at a nearby elementary school, the day she disappeared. People had seen her until just after four, when she’d left. She hadn’t shown up to a Pila
tes class at seven. There were hardly any traffic cameras in the area, since Raven Pass had one stoplight and even it was fairly unnecessary, so looking at that hadn’t yielded results. They’d asked on social media, had run the search from every angle they could think of.

  But the three-hour window remained.

  “She was at school, right?” he asked to prompt Raina’s father, though he started to question his coming here. These people were grieving.

  His time might be better spent elsewhere. Even while he waited for the man to speak, he began to plan his exit strategy.

  “But it’s where she didn’t go that is interesting to me.”

  Levi looked up. Waited.

  “We talked to her that morning, just a few texts. She was talking about how riled up her students were, and that she hadn’t had coffee. She’d been running late. Now, she may have had it at school—teacher’s lounges have coffee makers, you know, but...” He glanced at his wife. “Maybe she stopped at her favorite coffee shop after school.”

  “Which was?”

  “Raven’s Rest. The one on Second Street, near the woods.” He shook his head. “It seems like an awfully easy place to go missing.”

  Levi perked up at that comment. He had said nothing about the pattern of women to disappear from coffee shops in this area.

  So there was no reason for the Marstons to link the coffee shop for that reason. But the fact that Raina’s dad had remembered she’d not had coffee that day was important.

  “I do appreciate knowing that.” He kept his voice even so he wouldn’t give them false hope if this lead didn’t go anywhere.

  But they had just given him something to work with.

  They talked for a little longer. Levi did his best to update them on the progress of the case and to listen. Adriana joined in very little and unless he missed his guess, he thought she might be a little pale.

  She’d lost her fiancé. She’d told him that the other day, but her anxiety was bigger than even her panic attacks, wasn’t it? It had been years ago, surely...

  No, there was no time limit on things like that. He knew that better than most. He might never be like a guy who hadn’t gone through what he’d gone through, no matter how many years passed between his wife’s infidelity, and then desertion, and now.

  No, what people went through changed them. Forever.

  “Thank you again for your time.” He told the Marstons when they’d wrapped up their conversation and been through the careful dance of “thanks for coming,” “thanks for having us,” and all that society had declared had to happen before a conversation could end. They’d all moved to the entryway and then back to the front deck.

  “Thank you. We really liked talking about her.” Mrs. Marston’s smile was genuine, even with the tearstains on her cheeks. “I appreciate what you are doing to find whoever...did this.” She glanced over at Adriana, then looked straight at Levi. “Be careful. And make sure that she is careful.” The older woman nodded, like she’d given him some kind of official order.

  “Whoever did this is still out there. I can’t see them appreciating being caught.”

  “Adriana, could I talk to you alone, just for a minute?” Mrs. Marston asked as they crossed the deck.

  Levi’s eyebrows rose and Mrs. Marston shook her head. “Just here, on the deck. I know you probably don’t want to let her out of your sight at all. I know my daughter isn’t the first young woman to disappear here in the last decade.”

  Adriana nodded, so Levi nodded, too. Adriana did fit the profile, though in her late twenties she was slightly older than many of them. Mostly he didn’t want her out of his sight because of the direct threats against both of them.

  “I’ll go start the car,” he said, watching out of the corner of his eye as he walked away.

  What would it be like, he wondered, to have been involved with a woman who would still grieve years after he died?

  Not that he would ever want to cause someone that much grief. But still, Levi couldn’t imagine being loved that way, knew too well that he hadn’t been in his past relationship.

  But Adriana had a huge capacity for love. That was something else he’d learned over the last few days.

  And Levi, despite his hesitations, all the reasons he knew it was a bad idea, still wondered what it would be like to be loved that much.

  He sat in the driver’s seat while Adriana and Mrs. Marston talked, then watched as the couple waved and Adriana walked to the car. She climbed in. He tried to keep his tone light as he navigated down the hill. “You up for a trip to the Raven’s Rest coffee shop? I can drop you at your house if you need me to, and get someone there to watch you.”

  She looked near her breaking point and Levi didn’t want to be responsible for her breaking.

  “I’m not fragile, Levi. I can handle working this with you, okay? Let’s go to the shop. But let’s go home and get Blue.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “We’re not looking for...”

  “She’s also a regular search dog. And the fact that we aren’t looking for bodies today will make it so she doesn’t need a break. Searching for the scent of someone who was living doesn’t put as much strain on them.” Adriana held up a pair of worn socks. “These were their daughter’s. She wanted to give them to me, just in case I could figure more out from using them with Blue. Where Raina was taken from, why, anything like that. It’s not too late to search for evidence of where she might have been.”

  Levi nodded.

  “That makes sense. Okay, home to get your dog?” he asked.

  Adriana nodded. “And then to the coffee shop.”

  Something in her voice was determined. Dark.

  And he wondered, was she doing this only to get closure for the families affected by the serial killer and to ensure no one else died? Or was she somehow trying to get closure for herself as well?

  Making cases personal was never a good way to handle things. He’d seen officers break down mentally because they took on the emotions of victims’ families and got too close to situations. Compassion was important, but so was some distance.

  He only hoped he could help Adriana avoid those mistakes.

  * * *

  “I’ll be right back out,” Adriana promised, leaving Levi alone in the car once they returned to her house. Her heart was pounding in her chest, much too rapidly to be normal, and she felt her hands beginning to sweat.

  She’d had one panic attack in front of Levi already. She certainly wasn’t planning to have another.

  Good thing she legitimately needed to get her dog for this next job.

  The house was empty, except for Babe and Blue, who both met her at the door. Adriana had felt some hesitation about coming inside alone, but even though Levi had offered to clear it for her and walk from room to room and confirm that the house was empty, she’d turned him down. If he came inside to check the house, he’d want to wait for her to gather what she needed and get ready, and she needed to be alone. To think.

  She went through the motions of getting Blue ready. Grabbed a snack and a treat for later. Picked up the bag that held her SAR-K9 vest to put on her later as identification. Gave her some water in case she wanted one more drink before they left, though she had a portable bowl as well. Really, it was a stalling tactic to give herself a little more space from Levi and his gaze that seemed to see through to her soul. She need a little more time to try to breathe and calm herself down.

  But it was like someone was gripping her chest with a vise and no matter how much she struggled, Adriana couldn’t quite breathe.

  She couldn’t get over the attitude of the Marstons. Why hadn’t they hated her and Levi for not being able to give them answers? While they shouldn’t hate them, she knew all too well that grief turned sadness into anger in strange ways.

  Hadn’t she spent days, weeks after Robert’s death
blaming the rescue workers? Wondering whether, if they’d gotten there earlier, they could have helped?

  Hating how calm they had seemed when her whole world had fallen apart? Maybe that was why she got so invested—too invested, according to Levi.

  But they hadn’t seemed affected by any of those negative emotions toward her or Levi. They’d been kind. Concerned about her safety.

  Your daughter is dead. She’d kept thinking in her mind. Your daughter is dead and you’re worried about me?

  How did they move on? How did they keep caring about other people after what must be one of the worst losses, the most devastating?

  No matter how hard she tried to swallow normally, slow down her heart rate, she couldn’t. Finally, Adriana sank to the ground on the floor of her kitchen and leaned her head back against the pantry door.

  In her pocket, her phone started buzzing. Adriana took another breath, then another, and finally decided to check it.

  It was her SAR colleague Ellie.

  Adriana considered, and then answered. “Hello?”

  “Hey. Are you doing okay?”

  How could she ask that question? Had Levi called her?

  “Did Levi ask you to check on me?” she asked.

  “No, but I was curious about that, too. I heard you’re working with him right now. How’s that going? We miss you here.”

  Ellie’s voice was normal, completely free of pity, and if Adriana didn’t know better...well, it really did look like no one had told her to call.

  Adriana glanced up at the ceiling, seeing in her mind’s eye the heavens. Did God prompt people to make phone calls? Ellie was one of the people she could trust. And here her friend was, offering to talk to her.

  She was past pride at this point, as nausea had crept in to join a variety of symptoms. “I’m not great,” she admitted, her voice wavering.

  “Is it Levi? I know he’s always driven you crazy.”

  He had, hadn’t he? But, no, working with Levi had been fine. It was her. Only her.