Alaska Secrets

by Sarah Varland

  He heard Katya, his German shepherd, whine from the cab. He should have let her out to do her business when he first got back.

  “Good girl. Sorry about that,” he told her as he let her out and he went back to unharnessing.

  He heard the thud first, then the muffled scream. And growls. Ellie. Katya.

  Leaving the remaining dogs hooked up to the line, he ran to the other side of the trailer. A man was dragging Ellie away; they were already at least fifteen feet from the trailer. Seth’s heart stuttered. He couldn’t lose her.

  “Hey!” he yelled, running toward them. Ellie managed to get one arm free, and as the man holding her was fighting to subdue her again, she used her head to slam back into his nose.

  The man cried out in pain, and Katya, a retired police dog, used the opportunity to attack.

  Apparently Ellie still remembered what she’d learned...and so did Katya.

  Ellie’s attacker let her go. Katya looked at him, then at Ellie and chose to guard Ellie.

  Seth reluctantly left Ellie and pursued the still-fleeing attacker. But the other man had a head start and wasn’t wearing as many layers of winter gear as Seth was. Seth only sprinted about thirty yards from Ellie when he realized that if he kept chasing, he was leaving her unprotected except for Katya.

  He’d already thought there was more than one person after them, that there was some coordination in these ambushes. Being attacked like this all but proved it. No. He couldn’t leave her alone at all right now.

  Instead he closed the distance in a hurry.

  “Are you okay?” he asked Ellie first.

  “I’m okay,” she said, but her voice was shaky. He looked her over, didn’t see any obvious injuries. He’d come back to her but turned his attention to Katya for now. “Good girl. You’re such a good girl.”

  “Did you see her attack him? She did such an amazing job.” Ellie sounded like she was crying, and sure enough when he looked at her, tears streamed down her face.

  “I saw.” He ran his hands over Katya’s long body, noting that she felt good. Not too tense. He saw blood, but only coming from her mouth, and he thought it was probably from the bite she’d given the attacker. Still, it was disconcerting.

  Satisfied his dog was all right, he returned his attention to Ellie, who had propped her back against the truck.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  His heart pounded in his chest while he waited for her to answer him. He’d come so close to losing her just now, had done his best not to let down his guard and apparently had, anyway. That realization felt like a sucker punch to the stomach, coming a second after you had been tensed and ready for it but had just relaxed.

  The admission that he’d failed her hurt. It hurt a lot. Losing her would have hurt worse.

  God, please let her be okay. If this is a second chance, I don’t want to lose her. And if You’re giving me a second chance, well, I’ll try not to mess it up this time.

  * * *

  “I’m okay,” Ellie repeated again, as if saying the words over and over would convince not just a distraught Seth, who was still standing there with a look of intense concern on his face, but herself, as well.

  “I’m okay.” One more try. Ellie shook her head, then looked away from the pull of his dark blue eyes and petting the panting German shepherd beside her. Katya looked exceptionally proud of herself, Ellie noticed. “Your dog saved my life.”

  “You saved your own life by not panicking and fighting back. She just helped.” Still, he reached over and petted the dog, too. Their hands brushed, and there was a small spark and a deep sense of warmth inside Ellie that felt like familiarity and comfort. And, well, home.

  He kept talking. “You’re amazing.” Did his voice break on the last part? She thought it might have. “But we can’t do this anymore,” Seth continued.

  “Dog mush?” She laughed or tried to. Her voice might not have been quite strong enough right now for a very genuine-sounding chuckle. Truth was, she was still shaken, even if she didn’t want him to know it. When her attacker had pinned her arms to her sides, she’d felt helpless, and it was the first time since Liz’s death that she’d felt genuinely powerless. Even in the depths of the fear she’d felt earlier that day—or had it been last night?—she hadn’t felt completely helpless like she had during this attack.

  Now she remembered why she had run away from Seth. She hated that feeling, hated the way it fueled her guilt. She shouldn’t be powerless. She’d trained for this—repelling an assaulter—and for that, too, what happened three years ago. No, when she was in the police academy, she’d never have guessed that she’d ever be close to the investigation of her best friend. But she was supposed to be able to handle the fact that people committed awful crimes, that sometimes police could stop them and sometimes they couldn’t.

  And she still was supposed to have that sensibility...wasn’t she?

  She rubbed the soft fur behind Katya’s ears. Leaned back against the side of the truck and exhaled. Slowly.

  How could it have all happened so fast? Ellie tried to put the pieces together in her mind as she ran back over what had happened. Someone must have followed them up to Wasilla from Raven Pass, which up until now she’d admit she hadn’t thought was possible.

  Unless...

  “Do you think someone saw us leave town and called someone else to follow us?” she asked Seth, who was still standing two feet away from her. For now, his presence was reassuring. She hated how scared she’d been and how weak it felt to know that another person’s presence was so reassuring to her. But at the moment, she didn’t have the emotional strength to fight it.

  Any of it, she realized as she looked up at him while he talked. His warm blue eyes still contained those varied shades of glacier blue and deeper ocean blue that she’d always loved, even if time had framed them with some lines. His face didn’t look older, not really. Just weathered, stronger.

  He was stronger now than he’d been back them. He seemed sure of himself and what he wanted in life. Altogether, he’d come through the crisis they’d both experienced a better man, and she...

  She’d barely made it out.

  “Ellie? Did you hear me?”

  She jerked her attention back to him, feeling her cheeks heat at the obvious answer. No, she hadn’t heard him, she’d been lost in thought.

  In his eyes...either one.

  “Uh, no, sorry.” She shook her head, like the physical motion would clear her confusion. “I didn’t hear.”

  “I told you that I think you’re right, there must be more than one individual.” He looked away from her, frustration etched across his face in the tightness of his jaw, the frown knitting his eyebrows. “I was so sure we’d notice being followed.”

  “And we would have if one person had followed us,” she told him. “You can’t take responsibility for everything, okay? You couldn’t have predicted this.”

  “Don’t you see? I should be expecting anything at this point. This isn’t safe, what we are doing. None of it is. They’re always one step ahead. There are clearly more people than we thought paying attention. I don’t know how I thought this was going to work, but I can’t do it, El.”

  “Can’t do what?” She was exhausted, overwhelmed, and truly didn’t know what he was talking about.

  The look he gave her seemed to say that she did know, she just didn’t want to.

  “I can’t do this undercover investigation. Not with you, I can’t risk your life.”

  He looked away again, and this time the tightness in his face seemed more like embarrassment than frustration. At being caught caring so much? She was flattered that he still cared.

  But irritated. Because who was he to decide what amount of danger she could put herself in?

  “You don’t have a say in what risks I take.”

  “I d
o when it was my idea,” he protested. “I’m the one who got you into this. Even though the investigation was your idea, it was finding me that dragged you back into this and I don’t like that you have a target on your back. Or that you could be collateral damage because they’re after me. Either way, you’re in danger. The deal is off. We aren’t doing it.”

  Ellie was lost in thought, only half listening. She was still working out how they’d been found. It would have been easy to follow them for one car, then to call someone else. There had to have been, what, at least three cars? She and Seth shouldn’t have been surprised because if there was some kind of drug smuggling operation, more than one person had to be involved...

  “Wait, aren’t doing what? The undercover op?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “You can’t stop me from doing it without you.” The words were out before she considered them, because yes, he could stop her since she was going undercover as a musher and using one of his sleds and his dogs. But he shouldn’t be able to. She was the one who’d wanted to investigate in the first place and despite the fact that he liked to ignore it, she had the qualifications to do so. Maybe not the credentials anymore, but she remembered what she’d learned. She could do this. She had to do this. For Liz. For herself.

  “I’ll tell RPE you don’t have enough experience mushing.”

  Now he wasn’t the only one feeling frustrated. Ellie knew this wasn’t a time for her to give way to her emotions, but she was also tired of keeping such a tight grip on her feelings. And, well, tired physically.

  “I can’t believe you would try to stop me from this,” she snapped, then stood up straight and looked him in the eye.

  “Ellie...”

  “No, seriously, I have every right to risk my life doing whatever I want, and I don’t appreciate...” She trailed off as he moved closer.

  Their eyes were locked together now, and they were only a heartbeat apart. If she turned her head wrong, their noses would touch.

  “I don’t want to lose you again,” he whispered. “I never did.”

  And then their lips met, again, for the second time since he’d come back into her life a mere forty-eight hours ago. She couldn’t be doing this again, she thought as they kissed, slowly and with so much aching familiarity that she felt her shoulders relax and her anxious heart stop questioning it.

  He pulled back first, and she was left blinking. At a loss.

  Missing him.

  And then the space between them sobered her like cold water on her face.

  She’d left for a reason.

  “Seth...” She’d let him down. Liz had reached out to her long before the day they were finally supposed to meet and asked if they could talk in person about some things Liz thought the police might need to know. It had been a busy time for Ellie, both at work and in her relationship with Seth, and she just hadn’t made the time.

  Until that day, when they had finally set up a meeting, and then just before Ellie arrived, Liz had been shot.

  Too late. Too late on so many counts.

  And far, far too late to salvage any sort of relationship with her dead best friend’s very much living brother.

  “Seth, I have to tell you something.”

  “Ellie...”

  “It’s why I left. Or it’s... Anyway, Liz had wanted me to investigate earlier. I didn’t, and I should have. And I’m sorry.”

  She shook her head.

  “Don’t, Ellie. Don’t bring up the past right now. Please, can’t we just—” he swallowed hard “—try again? Start over?”

  Had he not heard her? Did he not understand that Liz’s death was her fault? She couldn’t say it again, didn’t have the courage right now. But he wanted to start over?

  If it were possible, she would do it. She’d never loved anyone like she’d loved him, knew she never would.

  But life wasn’t like that, and it didn’t give real fresh starts. She could never tell him the reasons she’d left, about the crushing guilt she felt over Liz’s death.

  Which meant that starting over was impossible. She shook her head, walked away and climbed into the truck.

  TEN

  The drive from Wasilla back south to Raven Pass was made in silence, and not the companionable kind. If Seth hadn’t already had hesitations about them going through with this undercover operation, he’d have them now. How were they supposed to work together in the wilderness for days, now that he’d ruined everything? She’d given no indication of wanting to start over, and yet that’s exactly what he’d asked her for. He’d made an impossible request.

  Except it hadn’t felt like it, he admitted to himself as he followed the curves of the road around the tall cliffs of the Seward Highway. Maybe if he had really thought he was the only one who felt that way, he’d have been able to play it cool, not let his feelings show. But the way she’d looked at him, smiled at him...

  He knew, deep down, that he was the only one who’d toyed with the idea of a second chance.

  But it didn’t matter now. She’d said no; that was the end of it.

  Now they had to work together in what was already an incredibly tense situation. Much as he had tried to call the whole thing off, he knew Ellie would just find a way to investigate on her own, and that would be even more dangerous.

  They were in too deep to stop now; the only way past this case was through it.

  Seth just dreaded what the next few days could bring. More than once he’d closed his eyes to fall asleep and been tormented by images of what could happen to Ellie if she kept investigating. The thought of her life being taken from her was unbearable. Unacceptable.

  But it was a risk that came with what they were getting themselves into. And Seth hated it.

  “You feel ready for tomorrow?” He finally broke the silence as they turned off the Seward Highway onto the road to Raven Pass.

  She nodded. “I do. I know there are things I don’t know yet, probably things I don’t even realize I know, but I think I know enough that I can fake it till I make it.” She turned to him and smiled, but there wasn’t as much joy behind it as there had been earlier.

  Had he caused her to lose that happiness? Or was something else bothering her?

  “We should pack up tonight so that tomorrow we aren’t under so much pressure.”

  Ellie shrugged. “I thought we could look back at news reports from three years ago, see if they list anyone the police interviewed and things like that. Maybe make a list of names that keep popping up.” It was grasping at straws, and they both knew it, but neither was sure how else to go about this. Seth had already looked into RPE online and tried to find police reports or anything else associated with them that implied they could be involved in something illegal, but had found nothing. When he’d mentioned that to Ellie she’d said she’d done the same, and also found nothing.

  “Not a bad idea,” he said. The letter from Liz had given them something to work with and had gotten them both thinking about the case again, but there hadn’t been a lot of solid evidence.

  Why had Liz been killed? For being a witness to someone specifically committing an illegal activity, or just a potential witness in general?

  “So we’ll start that in the morning?” he asked as he pulled up to his house.

  She nodded. “Sure, sounds good. Do you want help putting the dogs away?”

  He shook his head. “Nah, you know how that part works. You may as well start packing.”

  She nodded again. Headed inside.

  And Seth sat in his truck with his head in his hands, wishing he could erase the last three hours.

  Or go back and erase whatever had happened to derail their relationship three years ago.

  * * *

  By one in the morning, Ellie had created quite the list of things she would willingly do in order to have a good night�
�s sleep. Clean toilets. Dust ceiling fans—her least favorite chore of all.

  Anything short of tell Seth why she’d really pulled away from him. She’d come close earlier when she’d told him that Liz had told her about the threats sooner, but she hadn’t spelled it out for him. He might not understand that she bore so much responsibility. And he certainly didn’t understand that she couldn’t face a lifetime of guilt. That felt too personal to share. She couldn’t hurt him that way. Or let herself be hurt by his possible rejection. His defeated look earlier had half killed her and had definitely extinguished the tiny sparks of life she’d been feeling lately. Somehow she hadn’t realized until now how little she’d really lived in the last few years. She’d cut herself off from the life she’d had before Liz’s death and her breakup with Seth. Her friends on the search and rescue team, especially Adriana and Piper, had tried to talk to her multiple times. Adriana was always subtle, a listening ear. She had her own secrets, Ellie suspected. Piper was less subtle, steamrolling her way into Ellie’s life, or trying, but Ellie hadn’t shared much with either of them.

  But yes, she’d been able to recognize from their prying questions that she probably held her cards really closely to the vest, lived too cautiously. A side effect of seeing life end far too quickly for her best friend, witnessing all her carefully crafted ideas for life shatter into pieces after that.

  Being here with Seth again had felt like life suddenly bloomed into color, full and vibrant. Like the hottest late-June day of an Alaskan summer after a winter of snow and gray. And she wanted it, badly. She wanted Seth in her life again, wanted to walk down the hallway, tell him she’d never stopped loving him and let him wrap her in his arms and never let her go.

  Ellie turned over again, flipped her pillow to the cool side and closed her eyes.

  When she did that, though, she just saw Liz and her wide smile. There was someone who had lived life fully, even if her life had been short.

  Why hadn’t Ellie listened to her concerns? Would it have been so hard for her to take time out of her schedule sooner and listen to her friend?