Alaskan Showdown

by Sarah Varland

  “I can’t... I don’t...” She struggled for breath. “All those people, Ellie. All those people I’ve been thinking about, that I’m supposed to be helping him find, they were murdered. And it’s different than SAR work.”

  Her friend was quiet for a minute and Adriana worried she’d crossed some invisible line.

  “That would be different. Do you want to talk more about it?” Ellie’s voice was soft. Not demanding. Even though they were in different places, Adriana felt like Ellie was sitting next to her.

  In that moment, Adriana felt like she wasn’t alone. Her next breath came easier and she felt some of the pressure on her chest ease.

  “I just don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to handle this.”

  “Have you told Levi? I’m sure he won’t hold you to helping.”

  He wouldn’t, she knew. He’d let her walk away right now. But Adriana didn’t want that. She wasn’t a quitter.

  Yes, she’d walked away from her entire life near Anchorage years ago and started over here in Raven Pass, but that hadn’t been about running away.

  Or had it?

  “I don’t want to do that,” she admitted. “I want him to see me as strong.”

  Ellie was quiet. Adriana heard her own words, felt a question rising in her own mind.

  Then Ellie asked it aloud. “Are you...? Do you have feelings for him? You don’t sound like this is just an obligation to a sometime coworker.”

  She didn’t. Even to herself. Adriana couldn’t argue. She thought about watching Levi work a case, about the way his green eyes weren’t always playful as she’d once thought. He lightened up life, that was true, but when he was focused, he gave all his attention to his job. He was actually one of the most driven people she’d ever met and she’d never realized it before.

  A tear fell down her face as she felt her shoulders relaxing.

  Yes, she had feelings for him.

  “You don’t have to answer,” Ellie said. “But if you did...”

  Adriana waited.

  “It would be okay. And you wouldn’t have to hide those from him. And Adriana?”

  Still, she didn’t say anything back. Ellie didn’t seem deterred. “I will talk to you whenever. I know we haven’t always been super close, but you’ve always been one of the people here that I trust and I hope you feel the same.”

  “I do,” she assured her friend.

  “But,” Ellie continued, “I think you can trust Levi with your anxiety, too. He won’t see you as weak. If anything, he’ll see how strong you are for not quitting.”

  It was something to consider.

  The idea of relaxing, of telling him how she really felt about this case, instead of trying to wear a face of unbreakable confidence, reassured her.

  Adriana blew out a breath, wiped one more tear. And felt her heartbeat return to normal as the tension in her shoulders dissipated.

  “I’ll try,” she promised her friend.

  “Good. You can trust him. He’s a good man.”

  He was, Adriana knew, as she said goodbye and hung up. But the problem wasn’t Levi. It was the idea that if she grew closer to him, then she’d be opening herself up to getting hurt again.

  Losing someone she loved had almost destroyed her the last time. She couldn’t do it again.

  Still conflicted, she petted Blue one more time, then stood up and walked back outside, all evidence of what had just happened hopefully missing from her face.

  “Everything okay?” Levi asked when Adriana opened the car door and climbed back inside.

  She nodded. “Yes. It is now.”

  He looked at her. She waited for him to put the key in the ignition and head to the coffee shop where Raina had likely gone the afternoon of her death, but he didn’t. Instead he just watched her.

  Yes, she had to admit to herself as his green eyes searched hers. She felt something for him. More than friendship.

  She offered a small smile, tried to find a scrap of bravery. “This is hard,” she admitted. “It’s hard to see how lives have been destroyed. It’s hard knowing that no matter how hard Blue and I work, we aren’t going to be able to give any of these people back to those who loved them. They are all gone. And they were all murdered.”

  Instead of being concerned, or making a big deal out of the fact that she was half admitting to having a meltdown, he just nodded. With that came a sense of connection. To Levi. Because he responded the way she hadn’t even realized she wanted him to—just acknowledgement.

  “It is hard,” he said. And then he put the car in Reverse and backed out of her driveway. Then drove toward the coffee shop.

  Raven’s Rest was typical of an Alaskan mountain-town coffee shop. Woodsy, with lots of log and wood architectural details, but with quirky local artwork.

  That aesthetic usually made Adriana smile, but today she was having to wrestle with the idea that cheery places like this could have been related to something so depressing.

  Life was like that. Good and bad, high and low, all mixed together. Alaska itself often reminded her of those kinds of contradictions of life. Beautiful and dangerous at the same time. God was the same even when either extreme was happening in life. That was something else she was learning, slowly.

  She and Blue were standing outside the shop now, Levi with them. She’d told him he should just go in by himself to ask for information, while she let Blue smell around outside. Sometimes people watching her work made her nervous, and since her realization earlier today of the slight...attraction she had toward him, Levi watching her wouldn’t help.

  “I’m not leaving you out here alone. At the last place we think a murder victim was seen? Yeah, no.”

  Why abduct women from coffee shops? Did the killer hang out at these places often and were they just where he saw potential victims?

  Or was it more than that?

  She’d stayed up researching last night, serial killers in particular, and had learned more than she’d ever wanted to about them. Their habits still didn’t make sense to her—which was good since by definition they were not normal, clear-thinking people—but they generally followed a pattern. Their killings weren’t completely random, not in their twisted minds.

  The coffee-shop element had to factor in somehow.

  “Different coffee shops, right?” She turned to Levi.

  “What?” He looked at her. He’d been studying the shop, like the storefront held the answers he needed.

  “They haven’t all been this one.” She didn’t think so. Surely he’d have mentioned that.

  He shook his head. “None have been here. Two were in the same coffee shop, but it doesn’t appear there’s any pattern with which shop or how often. Just that it’s a coffee shop.”

  So not a location issue.

  It still didn’t make sense to her.

  “We can both go in. This is Raven Pass. No one is going to bat an eye at a dog in a shop.”

  Maybe he was right. Alaska was extremely canine friendly, especially in quirky mountain towns of just a couple thousand people, like Raven Pass and neighboring Girdwood. But there was a difference between a standard-size dog and her sixty-pound Alaskan husky, which many people told her looked like a wolf.

  Tall and rangy, with pointed ears and varying shades of creamy white and gray...

  Yeah, she could see their point.

  “You think no one is going to bat an eye at her?” Adriana raised her eyebrows and glanced down at her dog, who sat obediently at the end of her leash, looking for all the world like a sweetheart and not like an animal who’d just that morning stolen an entire cucumber off the kitchen counter and eaten it.

  “If they do, we’ll leave. Come on.” Levi reached for the heavy wooden door, with its carved wooden handle, and held it open for her. Reluctantly, she walked inside, pausing for him to fol
low her once she’d stepped in.

  The room was large, with high ceilings that sloped up toward the apex of the roof. At one end, a fire roared in a hearth beneath a mantel that spoke of warmth and made her want to cuddle up in one of the chairs near it, maybe with a blanket.

  In front of the entrance was the bar area, with a pastry display case.

  Oh, those looked really good.

  Maybe this shop would help her get her appetite back. It had been somewhat absent since the awkward conversations with the Marstons and her growing...awareness of Levi.

  If anything could, it was the blueberry crumble in the pastry case right there. Or the chocolate-chip banana buckwheat muffin.

  “Hi, can I help you?” The woman at the counter had long dark hair and looked to be in her midtwenties. She was gorgeous, Adriana noted and looked over at Levi without meaning to.

  Though why, she didn’t know. Even if she was developing a slight...crush or something on him, it was still silly. She had no claim on him. None whatsoever. They were barely more than coworkers, probably not even that. She needed to remember the way he’d pulled his hand away from her, and the way he’d backed off after realizing a question he’d asked had been personal the other day—

  Everything about their interactions made it clear he wasn’t looking to get to know her. Her own feelings were something she could deal with. And she could trust him enough to share her anxiety struggles—she thought Ellie was right about that.

  But that was different than making him aware of her feelings about him.

  She needed to try to ignore how she felt about him. However that was. She didn’t want to think too hard about it.

  Levi smiled at the woman at the counter, but with his regular, normal amount of warmth. “Hi.”

  The woman looked disappointed. At least it wasn’t just Adriana who couldn’t catch his attention.

  “We have a couple of questions about a woman who was here earlier this week,” he said.

  The barista’s eyebrows raised. “We get a lot of people in here.”

  “This was a woman, blonde. Raina Marston.” Levi held up his phone, which had a picture of her on the screen. It was a picture from social media, Adriana could see. He must have saved it when he’d been looking at her profiles earlier.

  “She’s come in before. I don’t know when, though.” The woman shrugged, looking at least a little apologetic. “Like I said, we’re busy.”

  “Can you try to remember the last time she came in?” Levi asked it in a much nicer voice than Adriana would have. It was taking all the self-control she possessed to stay quiet when this employee clearly didn’t feel compelled to help them.

  “I think it was Tuesday. I remember seeing her in here talking to a man.” She frowned. Then opened a drawer and shuffled through a binder.

  “Nathan Hall.” She pointed at a receipt. “I remembered because he was really cute and I was thinking if she didn’t go out with him again I sure would.” She shrugged.

  So Raina had met a man here, someone she might have been dating.

  And then Raina had never been seen by anyone again. But that accounted for at least part of the missing hours they had.

  And there was a man involved. Interesting.

  “Thanks so much for your time.” Levi smiled again. “Could we get a couple of lattes to go also?”

  They stood in silence while the woman made them and then handed one to each of them. Levi paid.

  “Thanks,” Adriana said. The two of them walked back out of the shop.

  “Well?” Levi turned to Adriana as soon as they were outside.

  “‘Well’ what?” she asked and then took a sip of her latte. She was usually a caramel macchiato sort of girl, but this was nice. Sweeter than she thought, with just espresso and milk.

  She glanced at Levi. Huh.

  “What did you think?”

  Levi had made it pretty clear he was going to treat her like an actual partner. She may as well just take a deep breath and do her best to swim. She’d been tossed in the deep end of this investigation, so it was that or sink.

  Adriana was tired, so very tired, of letting herself sink.

  “I think it’s strange she met a man here and no one knew. No best friend noticed? She hadn’t mentioned him?”

  “Online dating, maybe?”

  Adriana shrugged. “Possibly.”

  “Let’s go find Nathan Hall,” Levi said, heading for the car.

  “Wait.” Adriana found the nerve to interrupt, since they’d brought Blue all the way out here and the dog hadn’t even gotten a cup of whipped cream for her troubles. That was probably okay, since too much dairy wasn’t good for dogs, but Adriana didn’t want the trip out to be for nothing. Blue was wearing her vest, so she knew she was working, or would be soon. “I still need to look around. As long as we’re here, let me give Blue the scent and see if she picks anything up on the trails right here.” Adriana nodded to the woods next to the coffee shop, which had trails running through them. “That way we would at least know if whoever took her did so by car or walked her into the woods.”

  It made sense to go ahead and check, Levi thought.

  “You’re right.” Levi stopped. Nodded. “Okay, let’s do that, then.”

  Adriana petted Blue for a minute, then reached down with the socks.

  “Ready, girl?”

  TEN

  Once again, to Levi it looked almost like magic, how the dog and her owner worked together. Or maybe his thoughts were just clouded by the fact that Adriana herself looked like magic. Her eyes were sparkling, and he could tell she loved this part of her job—the search, her dog as a partner—and her hair was in loose curls around her shoulders, dark and shining in the sunshine.

  He was supposed to be getting her help with this investigation, not noticing her hair, her curls, or the way she looked at life. But he kept finding himself distracted.

  Not enough that he felt it interfered with his investigation. But he did need her. He just had to let her help and somehow keep his emotions in check, hold her at arm’s length, and that was getting harder to do.

  He’d actually grabbed her hand that morning. He remembered how it felt under his. Warm. Soft. And then he remembered the exact moment he’d realized what he was doing, that he couldn’t do that, and had yanked it away.

  She’d looked almost hurt, just before her face had become unreadable, but surely...

  So maybe she was attracted to him, too. In that case, it was just a mutual case of “what a bad idea.” A cop and an SAR worker? Not exactly a perfect match. Twice the stress, twice the danger, twice the heaviness. Levi needed to find a sweet...preschool teacher or something. Someone who didn’t snark at him, who didn’t make him feel so...

  Alive. Because when someone made you feel alive like that, and then they left?

  Yeah, he knew what that was like. Although had Melissa ever made him feel quite like Adriana did? He honestly wasn’t sure.

  Either way, the way he was drawn to her wasn’t something he should act on, he knew that. He wasn’t ready to try again with love. Not yet. Maybe he never would be.

  Because even though he knew he hadn’t been to blame for all that had gone wrong in their relationship, part of him still wondered... What if it was him? What if he wasn’t a good enough husband?

  What if he tried again, fell in love with Adriana and then wasn’t enough for her?

  No. He definitely wasn’t ready.

  He followed her into the woods after she’d given Blue the scent from the article of clothing the Marstons had given her.

  “The idea is that she’ll get the scent and I’ll be able to tell from her behavior if Raina was here, and if she was taken deeper into the woods or not,” Adriana explained.

  Levi just nodded and tried to keep up as Blue walked on one of the established tr
ails. Raven Pass was crisscrossed with them. Many of them became ski trails in the winter and he thought this might be one of them, with how wide it was. There was plenty of room to walk beside Adriana, so he did.

  He sensibly resisted the urge to grab her hand.

  Besides, she was working right now. She wouldn’t want that.

  Then again, he didn’t know what she wanted. He’d studiously avoided any kind of conversation that could get too serious or make them feel too close to each other.

  Because the fact was he just couldn’t take getting hurt again. And Adriana was so much. In a good way. So much sunshine. So much fire. Spark. So much potential to break his heart and he just couldn’t do that again. Not right now.

  “She was here.” Adriana said it quietly. “Somewhere near here.”

  “You can tell that?”

  She shrugged. “Technically, not for sure. Blue hasn’t alerted. There’s nothing objective to say that I’m right. But from knowing my dog, I would say yes.”

  Levi nodded. “Anything more solid than that? Should we keep looking?”

  Adriana shrugged. “Give me a bit longer, but I’m thinking no.” She turned around, made her way back toward the parking lot, watching the dog’s behavior carefully.

  “I think she gets the scent almost just as strongly out there. Now you’ll understand this is my interpretation, but I think probably it’s just that the scent got trapped in the trees. I don’t think she was ever in the woods. I think she was probably only here in the parking lot.”

  Levi stepped a few steps away and looked around. It was easy to imagine the day much like this one. Some cars in the parking lot.

  “If she didn’t leave the parking lot on her own, then our best course of action is to find the guy she was with.”

  “Did she mention him to friends? On social media?” Adriana asked.

  “Friends have been interviewed and didn’t mention anything. Officer Koser conducted those earlier today and texted me to say that nothing new turned up. Social media didn’t have anything definitive either.”

  “Wouldn’t she have mentioned him to her parents? If she’d been meeting him?” Levi raised his eyebrows. “So you think she met him and he took her?”