Ellie hadn’t realized he’d give false last names, but it made sense as a precaution.
“Nice to meet you both. How can I help?”
“I’m a local dog musher. I’ve heard about what you guys do here and wondered how to apply for a guiding position.”
“Same here.”
“You two know each other?” she asked.
They hadn’t invented any kind of deep cover story, and yes, they obviously knew each other, so Ellie nodded. “He’s the one who got me into mushing,” she answered honestly.
“Well, you’re in luck. A couple mushers we had lined up had to back out. Of course.” She hesitated. “The trip we really needed mushers for is happening this weekend.”
Ellie swallowed hard. It was already Wednesday, and she hadn’t run a team by herself yet. She smiled, then looked over at Seth. “I don’t know what Seth’s schedule is like, but I could make this weekend work.”
He nodded, also, though she thought she detected a flare of concern in his eyes. Oh, come on, she could learn to manage a dog team by the weekend.
Okay, yes, when she said it that way in her mind it sounded crazy to her, too. But they needed to find out who was behind this. Evidence pointed toward someone at RPE being involved and this was the best way to find corroboration. Too late to back out now. The woman’s eyes had lit up with relief, and she was talking now about what fantastic timing this was. Ellie knew that they needed as much authenticity as possible on their side with something this risky, not just for their lives and safety—though that was weighing on her heavily—but for their investigation. If they were discovered, everything they’d planned to work on would have to be let go. Investigating people in person, trying to get a feel for who might have been involved, these were unorthodox ways to conduct an investigation, Ellie knew that. But it seemed like the best option to her.
The fact that it had worked out well enough—she literally thanked God for that—that they actually needed mushers for that very trip? Ellie couldn’t have asked for better.
“It works for me, too.” He kept his nod casual.
“Great, well if the two of you could come with me, the boss can ask you some questions, and we just may have a job for you.” She motioned for them to follow her behind the counter and through a door to an office with the door open. The blonde woman knocked and then stuck her head around the wall. “Brandt? I have a solution to our musher problem.” She turned back to them. “Brandt is the founder of our company.”
The man in the office was behind a desk, Ellie could see now that they’d entered, and he was standing up and moving around it toward them.
“Brandt Bowker.”
“Seth Calloway.”
“Ellie Hamilton.”
Ellie watched Brandt’s face. He didn’t react to their names at all.
“You two are both dog mushers?”
They nodded.
“Excellent! Two of our usual employees canceled this morning. Seems they fell in love on one of our trips and eloped.” He raised his eyebrows and looked between the two of them. “So the two of you aren’t at risk of that, are you?”
Ellie blinked, cleared her throat. “No, we, uh...” She looked in Seth’s direction, then back at Brandt. “Just friends.”
“Absolutely. Friends,” Seth parroted in a way that did absolutely nothing to make their little protest more convincing.
Brandt smiled and waved a hand. “Listen, your romantic interests are your own business. I just need to know we can count on you for this weekend.”
“It works for both of us,” Seth answered for them.
“Great!” He nodded once. “Halley, can get you the paperwork they’ll need to fill out, as well as our information packet for our partners.”
“Do you work with a lot of different people? Dog mushers and other adventure providers?” Ellie asked, realizing the question might be useful for them.
“Oh, tons. Raven Pass Expeditions is an extremely large venture. We do everything the bigger companies do but better, and in smaller groups, which gives our tourists a better experience. And that’s the goal, right? A good experience for everyone?”
His enthusiasm for his company seemed genuine, Ellie noted. But again, people could have dark sides. Things about them you didn’t know. She’d seen it enough in her job when some of the people they’d had to arrest had been people who looked like pillars of the community.
“We’ll be happy to get things filled out. And Friday is the day you need us?”
“Yes. You’ll meet the clients right before the trip. They’ll be arriving at three. Can you make it?” He seemed anxious, like he was anticipating them saying no and this whole thing disappearing.
It took all her restraint for Ellie not to elbow Seth in case he wasn’t reading this right. They couldn’t mess this up. If he wanted them there at three, that’s what would happen.
“Three o’clock? We’ll be there.”
SEVEN
The moment they walked out of the office, Seth started to second-guess his plan. No, that wasn’t true. He’d started to second-guess it the moment Ellie began talking, and she knew it, which was why she’d talked faster, dared him to speak up against her with that little sideways quirk of her head and her raised eyebrows. And he didn’t have a problem with the idea of going undercover in general; it was still solid and by far the best option he had to investigate. But he shouldn’t have let Ellie get involved. He ignored for a moment the fact that she was a former cop and this had been just as much her idea, and instead beat himself up, telling himself he should have said hello to her, done some catching up on old times and then let her leave. The farther she was from him, the better...and not just because he was heading into a potentially deadly situation. She was too important to him to risk her getting hurt. And too dangerous to his heart to risk getting close again.
At this point she might already have a target on her back from how much time they’d spent in proximity. Seth still had no way of knowing how the criminals knew he’d gotten that package. Had they been there when it was delivered? Followed it from the lawyer’s office?
“The lawyer...” he mumbled under his breath. Then turned to Ellie. “When was that package postmarked?”
They were walking back to his truck, and there was no one around, not that he saw, but he kept his voice low, anyway.
“I don’t remember. Why?”
“Wait. I don’t know yet.” He didn’t want to say anything, to let his mind go there, if there was a chance he was wrong. Instead they climbed into the truck and drove the distance to his house in silence. Ellie had always been good at that, not filling up silence with words. Sometimes he wished she’d just talk aimlessly, because he loved hearing her voice and her thoughts about life, but today he was glad she tended to be quiet.
He hoped what he wondered was wrong.
They’d know soon enough.
He parked the truck, and they climbed out. The sled dogs greeted them with howls, and Cipher jumped down from where she’d been lying on the flat roof of her doghouse and nosed his hand.
“Hey, girl.” He bent down and rubbed behind her ears. No doubt his dogs were picking up on the extra stress and anxiety he’d been feeling these last couple days. He needed to mitigate that as best he could, and showing them attention at times like this was one way.
“All right, let’s see...” he said as he unlocked his front door.
“Going to tell me what you’re thinking, yet?” Ellie asked.
He shook his head. “Not yet.”
She followed him inside, and he was thankful he’d managed to straighten up the mess the intruders had left in his house before. He locked the door behind them both, then walked to where he’d stored the box in his room.
Postmarked four days ago. And they’d come after him yesterday.
The criminals
had had three days in between to discover the package was coming. Either because someone was looking out for his mail at the post office, though that seemed the least likely option. Or someone had been watching his house. Possible, but somewhat of a stretch.
Was someone watching his sister’s lawyer? The man’s name had been fairly public during the investigation, as a witness had reported seeing his sister come from his office earlier on the day she died, wiping tears from her eyes. Police had investigated and declared the lawyer innocent, and Seth, who had met the man, was inclined to believe him.
He’d liked the guy. Even though he hadn’t had an answer for why his sister was crying. The lawyer had said she’d been fine inside the office.
And now he was afraid the lawyer might be dead...or about to be killed.
“Okay, you’ve really got to tell me. You’re making a really bad face.”
“I’m trying to figure out how these guys knew to watch me or knew this package mattered, and I wanted to see how many days passed from when it was sent to when I received it.”
“Why?”
He reached for his cell phone. “To see how likely it is that the police have already discovered that Liz’s lawyer has been killed.”
She blinked, jerked back. “You think...”
“Either they have been watching me this whole time, saw a suspicious package and acted, or they paid attention when Liz died, knew she’d been at her lawyer’s, and have been watching where he sends packages. Or someone else at the office let them know a package was going out to Liz’s brother. Any of those things would have flagged their attention, since both of us were connected to Liz.”
Her eyes were still wide, and she only nodded. She didn’t say anything, but what was there to say?
He dialed the number for a friend of his at the Anchorage Police Department. They’d been roommates for a while before his friend had gotten married and moved out.
“Hodges here.”
“Hey, Hodge,” he said. “It’s Seth Connors. How are you?”
“Good, man, I’m good. Been a while since I’ve heard from you. You all right?” His friend’s voice was cautious. And for good reason. Seth knew he had been hard to reach these last few years, appreciating that his friends checked on him via text now and then, but mostly replying in one-or two-word replies.
“I’m okay. Something’s going on down here. Got attacked on a training run yesterday.”
“You’re kidding.” He heard the frown in Hodges’s voice. “That’s an uncomfortable coincidence.”
Dread sunk into the pit of his stomach. He’d had the suspicion, that’s why he had called, but it sounded like he might have been right.
“Liz’s lawyer? Mick Rogers?” he asked. “I got a package from him and just realized someone might have been watching his office. Is he...”
“Found him dead just off the Ship Creek trail downtown two days ago.”
Seth looked down, took a breath and tried to absorb what felt like a punch to the gut. Suspecting it was one thing, being right was another. He hated that he man was dead, grieved for him. And at the same time realized that this meant the threat to himself and Ellie was all that much more real.
“You sure you’re okay down there? These guys aren’t messing him around. He was shot in the head, execution-style.”
“We tried to get the troopers to look into Liz’s death again...” He trailed off.
“But you think you came across more as a relative who can’t let go and less like someone with actual evidence that it was necessary?”
Hodges had summed it up well. Seth nodded. “Yeah.”
“I tried the same thing once over the past few years. My chief doesn’t think there’s enough to look at her specifically. That incident was written off as gang violence, wrong place, wrong time kinda stuff, but I’m with you, I think it’s looking like a tangle. I’m looking into what I can. We’re fully investigating the lawyer’s death since he was clearly a target.”
“Good.” Not as good as it could be, but he’d take it. At least someone was looking somewhere. He hated that the lawyer had died, though. He’d been a good man, by all accounts. Seth’s hands clenched into fists. His sister. Her lawyer. Too much death. No one else should have to die.
“I’ll keep you in the loop as much as I can. Is that what you were calling about? Or is there something else?”
“Nothing else. I just want to know who is after me and El.”
“Did you say El? As in Ellerie Hardison?”
He’d forgotten for a second that his former roommate was also good friends with Ellie, as they’d worked together back when she was an officer in the Anchorage Police Department.
Ellie turned to him at the sound of her name, head tilted a little, a question in her eyes. He shook his head. He’d explain when he was off the phone.
“Yeah. She’s here.”
“We miss her. I just thought of her the other day when someone made the coffee too strong. She was always doing that. She was a good officer, though.”
“Yeah. I know. We’re going to—” how did he put this in a way that didn’t get his friend in trouble but to also ensure if anything happened, someone would at least know to look for them? “—look around some. Liz had some suspicions. Her lawyer had just sent me a package that she’d instructed to pass on three years after her death if she happened to die. Guess she was really worried, and she was right to be.”
“What was in the package?”
“Her suspicions about—” he needed to stay vague “—some kind of smuggling operation she’d discovered. Look, Hodge, it was all suspicion, and while I know at least some things she was thinking had to be right, if her death wasn’t enough to make law enforcement think she’d accidentally gotten tangled up in something, this won’t be, either. Not yet, anyway.”
“But she told you what she thought.”
“Yes.”
Hodges blew out a long breath. “You be careful. Keep me posted, okay? And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. And make sure you keep Ellie close.”
“I’m not going to let her get hurt.” Seth lowered his voice as he said out loud the promise he’d already made to himself a hundred times in the last couple days.
The tension broke as Hodges laughed. “I didn’t say that, man. I said, keep her close. I’m thinking if she’s with you, I’m less worried about you getting hurt.”
Seth smiled. “You have a point.”
“All right, I’ll keep you in the loop. Take care, man. Call me if you need me.”
“Later.” Seth hung up.
Ellie was looking at him, eyes wide. “Hodges? What’s wrong? I could only hear enough to piece some of the conversation together.”
He filled her in, including the fact that the lawyer was dead.
She listened. “We need to get started on the training then, because we can’t afford to mess this up.”
He wasn’t sure he liked how determined she was, but he didn’t have another option right now. So he talked to her about what she’d need to know to dog mush. They needed to go out again.
“El, about this undercover thing...”
“Yeah?” She looked wary. Seth shook his head.
“I’m not calling it off or anything like that.”
Relief spread on her face.
“But I do think we need a solid plan. I didn’t like how it felt to be winging things today.”
She nodded. “Okay. That make sense.” She yawned, covered her mouth. “Sorry.”
“How do you think we should go about this?”
“Me? The undercover aspect was your idea,” she reminded him.
Seth winced. “It was, but it was a little rash. You’re the one with the experience, the training. How would you handle this?”
She seemed to be considering it. “I think we need to
consider this a fact-finding mission. We need to watch the people who work for RPE closely and not just decide which of them is involved, if any of them are. We also need to see if the expedition lends itself to being a vehicle for smuggling, you know? See if groups split up, could one individual disappear for a drop and not be missed, those kinds of things. I also think it would be helpful to try to talk to the workers alone and get a feel for who they are and if we think they’re involved.”
Already she had more of a solid idea of what to do than he did. Seth would be lost without her in this investigation, and he’d never been more aware of that.
He smiled. “Nice.”
“You think that’ll work?” She sounded uncertain.
“Ellie, I think you’re fantastic at this. It’s an awesome plan. Nice job.”
They talked a little longer, then when the light of the day started to fade, she stood up to head home. Seth offered to fix dinner for them, and while she could probably tell it was a ploy to keep her closer a little longer, she agreed. They sat down together at the table to a meal of moose steaks and mashed potatoes.
“You really should find someone to stay with during all of this, to keep yourself safe from these guys.” Seth tried to keep his tone even, but his heart was pounding. He knew she couldn’t stay here with him, it wouldn’t look right, but he wanted her safe.
Instead of being understanding, she just raised her eyebrows and shook her head, looking at him with a tired expression. She was still beautiful, but she looked tired.
He wished he could fix that for her.
“Don’t you understand?” she asked, shaking her head. “We are in danger because of Liz. Don’t get me wrong, it’s worth it to me, and I want to make sure her killers are brought to justice. But we are having to be careful right now because of our association with her. Which friend is it you want me to drag into this, knowing that someone could come after her next?”
Her look was pointed. She was right, and they both knew it, but he still wanted her safe even though it was selfish. He opened his mouth to offer his guest room, just in case, but she was already shaking her head.
Alaska Secrets Page 8
