Alaskan Showdown

by Sarah Varland

  He wanted to be the type of man she clearly thought he was.

  Someone knocked on the door. He took his hand off his sidearm, where he’d placed it just in case, moved the blinds up from the door to confirm that it was Judah, then unlocked the door and let him in. “Thanks for coming,” he said. “Nothing out there?”

  Judah shook his head as he stepped inside. Levi locked the door behind him. “No one out there, anyway. I wouldn’t say there was nothing.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Judah handed a note to him. Levi frowned. Whoever was after them had already shot at them and blown up his car. A note made no sense if the killer had appeared to be escalating.

  Stop working the case. They deserved their judgment. It was necessary punishment. You and your girlfriend have done nothing wrong, but you have made yourself a target if you won’t leave this case alone.

  Levi blinked. The words were typed. So writing it must have been premeditated. It was essentially the same message of the phone call, but with more urgency.

  The serial killer felt justified for what he or she had been doing. It didn’t surprise Levi too much. It was a special kind of insanity, but this was consistent with it.

  It made the person that much more dangerous, though, because they had a level of determination that someone committing a general crime of passion might not have.

  “So whoever is behind this sent me a warning. And Adriana, too.”

  Judah nodded.

  He could handle the threat against himself. It certainly wasn’t the first time. But the idea that Adriana’s life was in danger grated at him, and would have even if they hadn’t kissed earlier.

  What had made the killer assume she was his girlfriend? Was it a sarcastic comment? Or had someone seen them together so much they’d truly assumed that?

  Either way, she was in danger, which Levi hated.

  She had done nothing to deserve that kind of threat. She wasn’t even officially after the killer. He was.

  Maybe Judah had been right. He should never have let her get involved.

  All the places he’d taken her, the danger he put her in over and over, went through his mind. From the darkened woods where they searched for bodies, to the fact that he’d taken her with him to the coffee shop and to talk to Nathan Hall, frustration boiled over. He couldn’t believe himself.

  What had he been thinking?

  He needed to talk to Nathan Hall again. If they were being warned off the case now, there had to be a reason. Something about their investigation today had triggered the serial killer’s rage.

  Which meant that they were getting close. But he wasn’t taking her with him this time, not when it could put her in more danger.

  “I’ve got to go somewhere.” Levi glanced over his shoulder, in the direction of Adriana. “Can you stay here with her for me?”

  Judah nodded. “No problem. You’ll be careful?”

  “Yes.”

  Levi gathered his things and headed for the front door. Outside, there was a replacement patrol car that one of the officers had brought by earlier.

  He stopped one more time before walking out.

  “Watch out for her.” Levi met his brother’s eyes, which were overflowing with questions. Yeah, well, he’d answer them later. Or maybe not. Right now he needed to know she’d be okay long enough for him to have the conversation with her that he needed to have.

  “I will.” Judah nodded.

  And God, if You’re listening, please take care of her, too. He added the prayer as he reached for the door, trying in one tiny step to trust the God he had walked away from.

  * * *

  “What’s going on?” Adriana walked into her entryway just in time to see Levi reaching for the door. He was leaving? Without saying goodbye?

  “I’ve got to go talk to Nathan Hall again.” He hesitated, then walked toward her. “My brother is staying here with you. Be safe and don’t go outside, okay?” He pulled her toward him, like it was something he’d done a hundred times, and kissed the top of her forehead. It felt familiar. Like he’d done it a hundred times before. Safe. Warm.

  Loving? “I’ll be back soon.”

  Judah locked the door behind Levi and looked back at Adriana.

  Her cheeks heated under his gaze and she heard his unasked questions.

  “Please be careful. I don’t want to see him get hurt,” Judah finally said, bypassing anything resembling a question and going straight for his point.

  She fought the urge to be offended, which was balanced by her appreciation of how much Judah cared about his brother.

  She nodded. “Okay.”

  Judah considered her again. “He’s been hurt before.”

  “He told me,” she said, wanting him to know that she wasn’t being casual about this. And from the way he’d pulled her close, it didn’t feel like it was casual to Levi, either.

  “He’s never going to stop being a police officer,” Judah said.

  Why would he? Adriana had had the privilege to watch him this week, and he was good at his job. She’d never ask him to do that.

  She frowned. “Right, I know.”

  “Good.” Judah nodded once, like that was all he needed to hear. “I’ve got some work to do on my computer. If you don’t mind, I’d rather stay inside where I’m closer to you.”

  She would prefer that also. Adriana nodded. “Thank you.”

  True to his word, Judah walked away to the living room. Adriana went toward the kitchen. Strange that he’d brought up Levi being a police officer. Was that related to what had gone wrong in his marriage? She didn’t feel like it was her place to ask necessarily...

  But she meant what she’d said to Judah. She would never ask Levi to give that up, even if they started some kind of relationship.

  She reached for a dish in the sink and started to scrub. Levi was at this minute at the house of a man who could be a murderer. Maybe he wasn’t. But he could be.

  Okay, if she thought really hard about it she could understand why a woman who cared about a man wouldn’t love him being in constant danger. She and Levi, though...they weren’t anything yet.

  Adriana just needed to know if she could live with that.

  She reached for another dish, scrubbed harder and tried not to think.

  THIRTEEN

  “You didn’t tell me everything earlier,” Levi said once a surprised Nathan Hall had opened the door and invited him inside.

  The other man looked like a weasel, his eyes wide, his nose practically twitching with nerves. Levi supposed that was what happened when you were trying to live a double life and half of it kept trying to catch you out.

  “I didn’t,” he admitted.

  Good. Levi liked it when people didn’t bother to argue with him or lie to him. It made his job much easier that way.

  “We talked about why you were out dating, and then we left to investigate another lead. I didn’t ask you how you and Raina parted, and as it turns out, that is very important also.”

  “Like, was she mad? Or...?”

  “No.” Levi shook his head. “Did you walk her to her car at the coffee shop? Did you drive her to your place? Her place? Where did you go after coffee? And where did she go?”

  Now he wanted to lead the man, as it was all too easy to guess that he’d gone back to one of their houses and they’d done things he didn’t want to admit to.

  “Nothing happened” was all Nathan said.

  Levi stared. Kept staring.

  The guy finally broke after a few tense seconds. “We were supposed to go back to her place, okay? But you can go there and search it, however you guys do, and you’ll know I was never there. I waited in the driveway for a solid half hour, and she never showed. Do you know how embarrassing that is? It’s not like it was even my home, where I could go abo
ut my business—I’m just sitting in some woman’s driveway and she’s who knows where.”

  “Getting murdered, probably, in this case.” Levi didn’t sugarcoat it.

  Nathan paled.

  “I need you to tell me every detail you remember about your conversation.”

  He nodded, then swallowed hard. “Okay, I can do that.”

  Forty minutes later, Levi left again. According to Nathan, he and Raina had hit it off at the coffee shop. They’d started talking and he’d thought things were going well. That’s when they’d made the plan to meet back at her house. They’d left at the same time. She never showed up.

  If he was telling the truth, something Levi generally had a fairly good sense about, then she had been abducted somewhere between the coffee shop and her house.

  There had been no cell phone on her person when they’d recovered her body. If there was, they could have used the GPS to track her movements. As it was, that wasn’t an option. So he had to think through others.

  The presence of more traffic cameras in town would have made everything easier as another option. But Raven Pass didn’t have many. Without the cell phone tracker or cameras to work with, they would need to talk to anyone who was in the area at the time.

  How had someone known to come after Raina, though? It was another hole in the case he needed to figure out. Had someone recognized one of them and then decided to enact what they saw as justice? Or had someone heard them talking in the coffee shop and then decided to kill her?

  He thought about the barista’s binder. Was there a chance they could find someone that way, through the receipts? Only if they’d paid by credit card. It was a possibility, but not a good one.

  It might be a better decision to work the case from another angle.

  Levi drove back to Adriana’s house, the thought of facing her again making butterflies dance in his stomach. Since they’d kissed, he’d been focused on this discussion with Nathan.

  Now he had a chance to think about what they’d done.

  And he still wasn’t sorry.

  He parked the patrol car in the driveway, beside his brother’s, and knocked on the door. Judah answered it, and Levi walked inside.

  “Everything okay?”

  “It’s been quiet. Nothing going on.”

  Levi looked at his brother and tried to gauge what else he wasn’t saying. He wouldn’t have talked to Adriana about that kiss Levi had given her as he left, would he?

  Thinking back on it, though, yes, he might have. Because Levi hadn’t just hugged her like a casual friend. He’d pulled her to him and kissed her head like she was his to embrace and say goodbye to and expect she’d be waiting for him. It had been the gesture of someone who was part of a couple. Not friends. Not coworkers.

  “Did you say something to her?” he asked, his suspicions high.

  “I just don’t want you hurt.”

  Well, that answered that question.

  Levi shook his head. “Don’t mess with my personal life, okay? I don’t need your interfering.” Would he always feel like the little brother? He had no problem being younger, not in theory. He’d be in good shape longer and would be able to work longer, both of which were perks. But he was tired of being the one looked down on as less experienced.

  It was partially his fault for not making wise choices earlier in life. But he was doing better now.

  “Never meant to interfere.” Serious as usual, Judah shook his head and started toward the door. “I figured it was you at the door, so I got my things together. Officer Koser is watching her house tonight, so let me know when you’re planning to leave and I’ll send him over.”

  Or maybe Levi should call Koser himself, so his brother didn’t know exactly what time he left and question him about that. Wisely, he kept those thoughts to himself and just nodded.

  He didn’t want to antagonize Judah. He just needed him to treat him like the adult he was.

  “Have a good night.” Levi offered a small olive branch.

  “You, too,” Judah said, and then he left. Levi locked the door behind him.

  Levi walked into the living room, expecting to see Adriana, but she wasn’t there. He frowned and walked toward the kitchen.

  She was scrubbing at the top of the oven, which looked perfectly clean to him.

  “Everything okay?” he asked quietly so he didn’t scare her.

  She still jumped and he didn’t blame her. It had been a tense few days. “Levi, you startled me.”

  “You’re all right?” Was she upset about the kiss? The danger they were in?

  About nothing at all?

  It had been so long since he wondered what a woman was thinking, he’d forgotten exactly how relationships worked. Did he push her to tell him or let it go?

  See, he really wasn’t very good at this. A good reason if there ever was one to apologize to Adriana for the kiss and gracefully bow out of whatever it was he had started.

  But if he did that, he’d lose her. And that wasn’t a good option, either.

  Levi took a deep breath and waited. Better let her answer before he stressed too much.

  “I’m okay,” she sighed, then shrugged. “I was just worried.”

  He stepped toward her. “Judah was here. You were totally fine.”

  She looked up at him and he stepped closer. They were close enough to touch, but they didn’t—but he still felt her closeness as much as if they were.

  “I wasn’t worried about me, I was worried about... You know what, it doesn’t matter.” She smiled. “Never mind.”

  “You’re okay now?” he asked.

  She smiled and nodded. “I’m okay.”

  He reached out, rubbed her shoulder, and she moved closer toward him.

  “Levi?”

  Her eyes asked him questions that her lips never asked. What were they doing? Was this the start of something or just a weird reaction to the pressure they were under and all the time they’d been spending together?

  He didn’t have answers to any of it, not tonight, so instead of trying, he just hugged her close to him, loving how much smaller than him she was. She melted into his embrace and he felt his shoulders relax, even as his mind grew firmer in its resolve.

  He had to protect this woman he was slowly coming to love.

  Had to.

  “It’s all going to be okay,” he told her, hoping that he was telling her the truth.

  * * *

  Usually at night, Adriana was asleep moments after her head hit the pillow, but tonight she heard every creak of the house, every car door slamming from down her street, every strange dream-inspired noise that Blue made.

  Levi had kissed her.

  And then walked into the house of someone they weren’t sure was innocent of murder. He’d faced down a possible killer, giving little to no thought for his own safety.

  She had meant what she said to Judah, that she could never imagine asking Levi to give up his job. But she hadn’t expected to spend the next hour after that unable to concentrate on anything as worries for Levi clamored for her attention in her head.

  Could she let herself fall for a cop? She’d already lost one man she’d loved. And Robert had had a desk job, working for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. But his hobbies had been full of risks, and ultimately one had been responsible for the loss of his life. Should she let herself fall for someone who put himself at more risk than that on a regular basis? Knowing the danger he would be in every day he went to work and even on his days off?

  The darkness held no answers and she turned over again. Blue cuddled closer against her. She’d once had a no-dogs-on-the-bed policy, but Blue had broken her of that. Babe preferred to sleep on the floor, have his own space.

  What do I do, God? Do I keep moving forward with whatever this is? He hadn’t kissed her good-
night, but the way he’d held her still made her feel the closeness between them. Everything was different now. Funny how one small kiss could break down so many walls.

  They’d decided to spend the next day with Blue, checking out the four sites where they knew the killer had buried bodies, in case there had been additional victims. It could be a pattern.

  The more evidence they found, the better their chances of catching the killer got. If Adriana and Blue could find what Levi thought they would tomorrow, they’d have enough for him to finish building his case without her and her dog’s help. It might be the last day they would need to work together.

  Was it because he was developing feelings for her that he was pulling away with the case? Was he trying to keep her safe and out of it?

  It had to be that, because nothing about the way he’d behaved tonight implied that he wanted to see her less. If anything, it was the opposite.

  She turned over again. Men were confusing. She needed to fall asleep so she could wake up for work. At least her job made sense.

  FOURTEEN

  The drive to the site of the first body was much like it had been days before.

  “You ready for today?” Levi asked her, and Adriana nodded and petted her dog.

  “I hope so.” She patted Blue, trying not to let her nerves show in her voice. They were going to see whether they could find three, or even all four, bodies in one day.

  It would be a lot for Blue, and for her, but she had dog treats and toys for the dog; she’d ordered herself a new ebook to read in the bubble bath she was planning to take tonight.

  They parked the car and climbed out, then headed to the trailhead. Waiting for them there were Wren and Judah.

  “I asked Wren to meet us up here today, in case we were successful,” Levi explained after hugging his cousin and nodding good-morning to his brother.

  Adriana said hello, too, and found herself wishing she could have been alone with Levi on what would likely be the last day before he went back to work on his own.