“Trust me, I’m not interested in getting into it with Nate. He’s the one seeking me out. I’m not sure how to get him off my back. Whatever his problem is, it’s with my dad, not with me.”
“He seems to think you have some kind of control of things, so I don’t know if that’s gonna fly.”
“Sort of wish I had somewhere to hide out until he cools off. Maybe I could patch things up with Kyle, sleep on his couch for a few weeks.” Although my inner self cringed at the thought. His behavior the other day proved to me he didn’t quite believe that our relationship had ended. I didn’t want to risk Kyle getting the wrong idea.
“I wish you could stay with us.”
Stella lived with her boyfriend, Matt Childress, and his sister who already slept on their couch.
“Don’t beat yourself up, hon.” I tempted her with a bit of my omelet. “This is my problem to figure out. I suppose my apartment is as safe a place as any.” The words came out weakly. My mind turned to the wild look in Nate’s eyes from last night. I shook off the fear.
“Sure. Sure.” Stella patted my arm.
The cook dinged the bell. “Order up!”
“Give me a sec.” She scooted off to pick up her customers’ trio of breakfast plates.
Her laptop sat in front of me. I spun it around. Facebook hovered in my vision. I typed Nate’s name in the search bar. He’d blocked both my father and me from his Facebook page—not as if he’d been an incredibly active poster, but I suppose it had been his way of disowning us after the big blow up last summer. Since Stella was logged in with her account, maybe I could find a clue about what he’d been up to.
I clicked on the link that appeared. His avatar had switched from a picture of our dredge to a close up of a new tattoo he’d gotten on his right forearm—a topless mermaid. Classy.
I quickly scrolled through his latest posts. But most everything he’d put up recently had been pictures of women, a tower of beer cans he’d created on his back balcony, and tattoos he found worthy of sharing. I didn’t see anything connecting him to Lola, no pictures of drugs (as if anybody these days would be dumb enough to advertise), and nothing bizarre for a single man in his late 40s to post.
Stella returned.
For some reason the guilt sat in my throat like heartburn, and I quickly hit the back button on the browser to send it back to The Nome Nugget page where we’d begun.
“Doing some Facebook stalking?” Stella smirked.
Stella had a habit of using Facebook and other social media connections to dig into people’s backgrounds. She’d hear about so-and-so’s sister or that ex-boyfriend or this ex-husband or that former boss and would jump onto her trusty mini laptop that she kept in the back while she was working, tap a few keys, make a few clicks and tell me everything she could possibly find out. It never ceased to amaze me the tricks she used to dig up dirt. It was one of those powers I seriously hoped wasn’t turned on me someday. Luckily, Stella and I were long-time friends. Plus, she wasn’t a nasty person. Just curious.
I forced myself to swallow a bite of food. “Just re-reading the story about the drug bust.”
Stella nodded. Her eyes lit up. “Let’s check out your new diver!”
Before I could stop her, Stella clacked on the keys. “Benjamin Abel, right? A-B-E-L?”
My interest was piqued, I admit, but I didn’t want Stella to know. Last night there’d been something between Ben and me. An unspeakable something. I didn’t want to classify it. What if I’d read everything wrong? He’d rescued me from a dangerous situation. Every girl’s ‘knight in shining armor’ dream. It was hard to pretend my mind hadn’t gone there.
Stella’s gaze flicked over the top of the screen and caught mine. “A bit of a mystery man, it seems.” She picked up the laptop, crossed to my side of the table and forced me to scoot over to the next chair. “See?”
Like most men his age, his Facebook posts were light. His profile picture was an American flag, his background photo was a group of military men with their arms around each other out in the desert somewhere. I couldn’t help it. My gaze slipped to the ‘relationship’ status.
Engaged.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I let out a long breath of disappointment after seeing Ben’s relationship status. I barely knew Ben, but the truth made things easier. He had only been a decent guy last night. A good guy who defended a woman from a monster. That was all. Nothing more to it. In fact, the information made things a lot easier now. I could turn off any tiny feelings that had been percolating and cut them off. I’m sure it had only been rebound stuff after breaking it off with Kyle.
Stella had already moved on to his photo album, clicking through pictures. There weren’t many. Some old scanned ones from the 90s of old people and little kids at a barbecue, a school photo of a gap-toothed boy with wild dark hair, two huskies buried in a snowbank, an interior shot of a log cabin with an old man sitting in a recliner chair with several stuffed animal heads above him—a moose, a bear, a mule deer.
“Looks like Mr. America.” Stella tired of the photos and clicked on his friends list.
At first I’d been curious about my diver, now I felt as if I were invading his personal life without permission. “That’s enough for me.”
“What?” Stella stilled her finger on the scroll pad and gave me a hard stare. “Don’t make me into the snoop. I’m just trying to figure out if you’re safe out alone on the open water with this guy. Former military. Lots of family pics. Seems normal enough.”
“I gotta go.” I looked at my watch for emphasis. Still fifteen minutes before my meet-up with Ben, but I’d rather not stick around any longer. My stomach flip flopped. Not sure why. I’d crossed a line somehow, and it made me uncomfortable. “Sorry, Stella.” I handed her $20. “You keep the change.”
My friend took the bill and stuffed it in the pocket of her apron. “You busy tonight?”
“Nah, can’t go out on the water today, won’t have any gold to clean, why?”
“Thought we could maybe stream some Netflix? Matt’s gotta work.”
Matt Childress worked varying shifts at the Bonanza Express gas station in the center of town. Odds were at least one night shift came his way every week. Saturday night was a bit of a bummer.
“Sure.” Why not? All I had scheduled in my day was the visit to the assayers, so I could safely unload my pure gold into cash money and take a trip to the grocery store to refill my very empty refrigerator. Besides, after yesterday’s encounter with Nate, it might be a good idea to lay low for a while. I could hide out at Matt and Stella’s place until late. Then I could sneak home. If Nate was up to his drinking (or drugging, if I believed the rumors), he should be passed out somewhere.
Stella flashed her not-so-straight and not-so-white teeth at me. “Perfect. If you bring the soda, I’ll grab a pizza.”
“Want me to bring some popcorn? I can’t stream without a steady supply.”
“Not gonna turn it down. That’s for sure.”
I waved at Stella as I left the cafe. Everything seemed so normal. A regular Saturday in summer. Gold in my bag. Plans for the evening. If I could keep on that path of monotony, I’d be in good shape by the fall. No diversions. No changes. Mine when the weather is good, clean and count when the weather is bad. Deposit the checks. Limit my expenses. And everything should even itself out.
The only things that were not routine: my diver and Nate.
Alaska North Assayers was located only a few blocks over from The Polar Cafe. The gusty wind blew strands of hair across my face, and I wished I’d remembered to put on a hat to keep it under control.
Most of the buildings in Nome left something to be desired. Living so far from resources, building materials were expensive and in short supply. Beauty was not first on the list when building in Nome, and many structures used and reused materials when possible. The flat-roofed assayers office had been painted a mustard yellow and appeared tacked onto the end of a row of similar buildings. A bright yellow aw
ning, which could use some scrubbing, identified the place as Alaska North. The sign in the window had been flipped to OPEN.
When I entered the shop, Ben stood waiting. A dark mountain of plaid flannel and bushy beard.
“Hey, Stu,” I greeted the owner who sat behind the counter at his desk, which was covered in equipment. My dad had been taking me to Alaska North since my childhood.
Stu broke into a wide grin when he saw me. “Hey.” Then he sobered. “How’s your dad doing?”
The presence of Ben could be felt. Although Stu knew most of the details of my father’s accident and had been a great friend through it all, I didn’t want to cough up anything too personal. “It’s going all right.” But based on my phone call with Dr. Leskiv, I knew that wasn’t true. Financially it was bad. Emotionally it was bad. And physically my father had been unconscious for ten days and was in need of life-saving surgery. But I swallowed my words. “I brought my new diver, Ben, with me so he could learn about this part of the process. Also, so he doesn’t think I’m cheating him.” I winked. “We’ve got a twenty-five percent cut going, so I’d appreciate it if you’d split the total that way for us.”
“Check okay?” Stu gazed at Ben.
Ben grunted in the affirmative.
“Name?”
“Benjamin Abel.”
“A-B-E-L,” I said without thinking.
Stu scribbled it down on a piece of paper.
My heart thumped. Had I just let on that I’d been snooping?
Crap.
“Here’s our haul.” I dropped the Tupperware container filled with gold on the counter.
Ben stepped closer and appeared oblivious to my gaffe.
Without my permission, my body wanted to lean toward him. Find comfort. Safety. I willed myself to stop. Such a strange and uncontrollable reaction to a man I barely knew. A man I’d found out had a fiancée somewhere.
Unavailable, Rory. Unavailable.
“So how does this work?” Ben asked.
Stu hefted the Tupperware container and removed the lid. “Well, I check to make sure the gold is clean and dry.” He poured the gold from our container onto a plate on his desk. “If it’s under 10 ounces, I typically just buy it off you straight, with a fee tacked on—usually a few hundred bucks. Let’s put it on the scales to see where we are. Not a bad clean-out, Aurora.”
When he turned away Ben caught my gaze and mouthed “Aurora?” with a quizzical bent to one eyebrow.
I held back a laugh. Only old guys wanted to call me by my formal first name, oh, and my sister.
Stu set the plate on his scale. “Looks like about 6.5 ounces. Is that what you had?” He looked up and caught us in our silent fun.
I’d forgotten to weigh the gold myself. I nodded at his question, too embarrassed to admit my mistake. After cleaning the gold, one always weighed it out to ensure not only that your crew knew you were on the up and up, but so that you could make sure your assayer wasn’t playing any games. But Stu was trustworthy. He’d been weighing out Darling gold for decades.
“Probably want to just sell it to me outright. I can cut you checks right now for an amount this small.”
Ben checked out the rest of the strange equipment in Stu’s office. “So if it was more than 10 ounces, would you use some of that stuff?” He pointed at the desk filled with gold bar molds, crucibles of various sizes, crucible tongs, jugs of acid, a spectrometer, and other things.
Stu smiled at the question. “Yes. We’d melt it down to get out the impurities. Typically, 10% of the weight are impurities. Then we’d make it into bars. We keep 2%, and you’d get 98% of the value. Pretty common percentage around here.”
The bell over the door jingled.
“Oh, hey, Kyle.” Stu’s eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled. With a big bushy white beard, his eyes were his most definitive feature. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”
Kyle.
My heart skipped a beat.
I turned to see if it was my Kyle…correction, Kyle the Ex.
“Hey Rory,” Kyle said and nodded a greeting to Ben.
“Hey,” I answered as casually as I could.
Ben grunted. “Hey.” Ben either didn’t remember the awkwardness between Kyle and me from the other day or he did and wanted to insert himself into it anyway.
Kyle focused his attention on me. “So how’s your greenhorn working out, Rory? Finding the gold?”
The men’s eyes locked for a brief moment.
I could sense the tension rising. Not sure why. Kyle had a new gig. Why did he care?
“He might be new to mining, but he’s a quick learner.” I glanced at Stu who was filling out our checks. “I think he’s got it under control. Right Ben?”
Ben leaned against the counter. Cool as a cucumber. He never took his eyes off Kyle.
Seemed like a good time to change the subject. “How are your parents doing?”
His stance stiffened. “Fine.”
I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised at the clipped response.
Kyle took a position to the right of me, a full ten feet away from Ben. “Hey Stu. Got my check ready? Jerry said I could pick it up today.”
“Yeah, I got it here.” Stu acknowledged Kyle’s request while handing a check to me and a check to Ben. “Thanks for doing business. Hope to see you again soon. Give your dad my best.”
“I will. Thanks.” I tucked the check for a hefty chunk of cash into my bag. “See you around, Kyle.”
Ben folded his, stuck it in his back pocket, and followed me to the door. As I turned the knob, he held the door open over my head. His height surprised me for some reason.
“Yeah, see ya.” Kyle tossed at us. “Be careful out there.”
Odd thing to say. Felt a bit like a warning.
We both left Kyle inside the assayers shop.
Ben kept pace with me as I headed toward my apartment.
“What was his problem?” Ben asked. “I thought you guys were over.”
I scoffed. “We are.” I couldn’t believe he thought the tension was due to anything more than a competitive streak Kyle had when it came to mining. “He just wanted to show off. He started up with a new boat. Probably wanted to show us his check.” I shrugged.
I wasn’t going to let Kyle bother me. What did I care if he was doing better than I was? Although it was a bit of a jerk move, since he knew what my financial and personal situation was. Was this really the time to be competitive? He could’ve been a little less abrasive.
“Nah, he’s still got it bad for you.” Ben zipped up his jacket against the strong headwind coming off the ocean only blocks away. The sun could be shining in Nome saying ‘summer,’ but the wind could be howling ‘winter.’
My thoughts muddied. I had the very distinct sensation of wanting to disappear. “We broke it off. You’re wrong.” What I didn’t need to remind Ben is that I’d been at Kyle’s a few days ago, and it had been clear to me then that Kyle still had feelings for me. That wouldn’t really support my argument that the relationship was over. To get the attention off of me, I switched it around on Ben. “So, do you have a special someone in your life?”
Ben stiffened. “No.”
Instantly, the friendliness between us evaporated. Cold settled around me.
Before I could muse about his strange answer, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I plucked it out and answered it. “Hey, Stella.” I set aside my confusion and turned my attention to my friend. It had been good timing to break the awkward silence.
“You free?” Stella’s voice was an anxious whisper. “You need to get back over here.”
Stella’s tone unnerved me. “What’s going on?”
Ben treaded beside me, but he’d put distance between us.
“It’s Ben. I don’t know how to say this…”
I took a sidelong glance at Ben and slowed my steps ever so slightly. I didn’t want him to think anything was off. “What? Tell me.” My breathing slowed.
“
He was arrested last year.”
My stomach clenched. “For what?”
“Murder.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Polar Cafe was right down the street. I picked up the pace, so I could find out more about the unexpected and scary news from Stella about my diver. And, to be honest, I wanted to put some distance between Ben and me.
Ben was oblivious to the internal shift in my perception of him. The sun disappeared behind a clump of gray clouds. I shivered. My insides were a mass of nerves. The silence continued until we reached his ATV.
Could Stella be right? Could Ben be a murderer?
I thought about the time we’d spent on the dredge, his heroism the other day when I’d needed his help under water. He’d been attentive, concerned. And yesterday, when Nate had been so threatening and out of control Ben had stepped in once again to help me.
I reviewed the events of last night in my head. Ben’s emotionless visage. The robotic movements. As if he’d been on auto-pilot. He was capable of violence. I’d seen that for myself. But before I’d believe he was capable of murder, I’d have to find out more details. I couldn’t square what Stella told me on the phone with the man who walked next to me.
“Tomorrow the weather should be better.” I had to break the awkward silence somehow and separate from Ben so I could meet with Stella. Work was an easy fallback position for me. “The storm will blow through overnight. Let’s meet on the dock tomorrow around 5.”
I didn’t know how I’d feel in the morning about being alone with Ben on my dredge, but I had to say something normal. I could deal with the aftermath once I knew the details from Stella.
“Sounds good.” Ben stood for a moment staring at the gravel road beneath our feet.
“By the way, I really hate peanut butter,” he confessed. “Why don’t I bring the sandwiches tomorrow?” He gave a quick smile.
My pulse fluttered. Instinctually, I had a gut reaction to Ben—an attraction that I didn’t want to have.
He must’ve taken my hesitancy as a question.
He whipped out his check and shook it. “I’m flush with cash.”
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