Alaska Twilight

by Colleen Coble

  “How did he get out?” Her skin was flooded with high color, and a sheen of perspiration beaded her forehead.

  “Are you okay?”

  She nodded and pushed the door to her room open wider. “Just exhausted. I’d forgotten how tiring crutches are. I need to go to the store and get some moisturizer for my hands. They’re sore.”

  “I’ll get it for you. Rest a while. I’ll be right back.” He followed her inside, where she dropped her backpack and half fell into the chair.

  She held out her arms for the dog. “I’d better get it myself. I’m a little picky about the brand.”

  “Are you always this independent, or only with me?” He plopped Oscar in her arms. Were those tears in her eyes? “Whoa, I didn’t mean it. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” She dashed the tears from her cheeks with an angry jerk. “It’s nothing.”

  “Looks like it,” he observed. “Nothing always makes me look like I’m about to explode. It’s good to do nothing and get the blood pumping.”

  Her angry expression eased, and she sniffled, then smiled, though it seemed a little forced. “I don’t want to talk about it.” She heaved herself to her feet.

  “I’ll go with you. What do we do with the mutt?”

  “Leave him here.”

  “He was outside in the hallway.”

  She paused. “For real?”

  “How else do you think I got him? I didn’t break into your room.”

  “I was too mad to think.” Her smile was shamefaced. Her gaze wandered the room. “I’m sure I left the door locked. Positive. It was unlocked?”

  “And not latched.” He shrugged. “Maybe the maid didn’t lock back up.”

  “Why would the maid be here? We haven’t even slept in the beds yet.” She swung on her crutches toward the bathroom and peered into the tiny room. “It doesn’t look like anything is disturbed.”

  Tank went to the door and knelt to look at the latch. The doorframe had numerous scratches and gouges, but the latch and tongue seemed intact. The screws were firmly attached and tight. “Has your grandmother been back?”

  Haley shook her head. “She’s been with me. We went for lunch. Augusta is still at the café talking to an old friend of my mother’s.”

  She looked away and didn’t meet his questioning gaze. Bingo. Whatever had happened at lunch had upset her. Every time someone brought up her parents, she became tight-lipped. He’d liked the Walshes, but he was beginning to wonder if he ever really knew them.

  Haley picked up her backpack. “Let’s go.”

  “I’ll carry that.” He took her backpack and slung it over one shoulder, then held the door open for her.

  Haley thought her heart was going to pump out of her chest by the time she got to the shop. She was woefully out of shape, and she promised herself to start an exercise program the minute she got back to Phoenix. She’d see about ordering a prosthesis for running.

  “I’ll be glad when I can throw these away.”

  He grinned. “You never know. You might take it in your head to whack an intruder again like a female Rambo. They might come in handy.”

  She giggled. Nervous jitters again. Why did he affect her that way? She was usually able to handle male attention with dignity. Not that he was interested in her, she hastened to assure herself. They were as dissimilar as Oscar and Miki. She browsed through the toiletries aisle and found a surprising number of familiar items, though the prices made her gasp. She finally selected a medicated lotion. She paid for her purchase, and Tank tucked it into her backpack.

  He followed her out the door onto the sidewalk.

  “Now what?”

  “You don’t have to follow me around all afternoon.”

  “I don’t have anything better to do,” he said cheerfully. “I called to check on Libby and Brooke earlier to see if they wanted to come to town. Libby wants to finish the laundry, so they’ll arrive about three. I’m yours until then.”

  Hers. The thought made her stop, and he barreled into her. His big hands caught her before she could topple into the mud. “Thanks,” she muttered. A giggle fought to rise through her throat, but she stuffed it back down.

  “No problem.” He seemed reluctant to let go of her.

  She was in no hurry to move away either. His huge hands covered nearly all of her forearms, and their warmth seeped through her sweater. She could smell his musky scent, and a tremble started in her knees and moved to the pit of her stomach. She quickly turned her head so Tank wouldn’t see and ask what she was thinking about. “Do you know where Joy lives?”

  “Sure.” He eyed her. “You want to go see her?”

  The uncertainty in his face irritated her. “Do you think she should be warned first?”

  “No, it’s not that. It’s just you are already upset, and I wasn’t sure you were up to a confrontation.”

  “Is it going to be a confrontation? She doesn’t even know me.”

  “And you don’t know her, but I could feel the prickles coming off you in waves when you just mentioned her name. What do you have against her?”

  “Nothing.” Haley looked away.

  “Well good, because she’s a great kid. Mature for her age and so sweet.”

  She was tired of hearing about how perfect Joy was. She punched her finger in his chest. “Okay, you want to know? How would you feel if your parents disowned you for something you did when you were eight and you saw them only once or twice in a twenty-year span? Now I find out they had another daughter they never told me about, and loved her like they should have loved me. They put Joy in my sister Chloe’s place as if Chloe never existed. You think that would make you a little hostile?”

  He backed up as she shouted and continued to jam her finger into his breastbone. If she hadn’t been so angry, she might have laughed at the dismayed expression on his face.

  “Whoa,” he said. He caught her hand and held on when she tried to jerk it away. “No wonder you have a hide as thick as a buffalo’s. Calm down.”

  “I’m perfectly calm,” she said through gritted teeth. “Or I would be if you’d let go of my hand.”

  He released her and held up his hands. “If you want to hit me again, go ahead. Maybe you’ll feel better.”

  Her anger ran off like melting snow. It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t Joy’s fault either. She was as bad as her parents. She passed her hand over her forehead and eyes. “Sorry to take it out on you.” She leaned on her crutches and pulled her camera to her face, then stared at him through the viewfinder. That was better. She snapped a couple of pictures.

  He took the camera from her hands and dropped it to let it hang on its strap. “Don’t hide behind your camera. If you will face this, Haley, it will fail to have any power over you. Let’s go see your sister. Maybe you’re ready now.”

  “She’s my half sister,” she said automatically. She swung along beside Tank.

  “Half is as good as full. She’s a sweet girl. I think you’ll like her.”

  Haley didn’t answer. She didn’t want to like her. It might make her own faults seem more glaring. They moved in silence past clapboard and log homes that lined the narrow streets of Stalwart. A few had well-kept yards where phlox grew in profusion, lifting their faces to the Alaskan spring sky. The fragrance of the flowers filled her head and siphoned off her feelings of inadequacy. Okay, so she was out of her element here. She’d had years of practice in faking it.

  Tank paused in front of a low-slung clapboard house.

  “This is it.”

  The front door had claw marks from a dog on the lower half of the wood, the curtains at the windows were a soft faded-out blue, and moss grew on the shingles. The front yard looked like it hadn’t been mown in a month. Haley felt a stirring of something that felt like pity. Her half sister lived in his hovel? Why? What kind of family did she belong to?

  Tank stepped to the door and rapped hard. From inside, Haley could hear a child squalling and the blare of a television soap
opera. “Shut up!” a woman yelled. Moments later, the door swung open. The woman’s low-rise jeans were topped by a light-blue sweater. A blue bandana held back her dyed red hair.

  Struggling to maintain her smile, Haley stepped in front of Tank. “Hello, I was wondering if I could see Joy.”

  “Who are you, some new sales drone?” The woman took out her cigarette and tossed it to the concrete step, where she crushed it under what Haley called Barbie-doll shoes, slip-on high-heeled mules with no back. It joined a pile of other cigarette butts.

  “I’m Haley Walsh.”

  The woman blinked. “Walsh. You related?” A crafty expression crossed her face, and she smiled. “We’re so glad to have her with us. I know her mother would approve. Our little boy adores her.”

  The child’s wailing from somewhere in the house was beginning to grate on Haley. She strengthened her flagging smile. “Is Joy here?”

  “Sure.” The woman turned and bellowed. “Joy!”

  The wailing grew louder, and a young girl appeared with a one-year-old boy on her hip. Wisps of hair escaped her long blond braids. Cereal stained the front of her white top, and she looked tired. Haley inhaled, unable to tear her eyes from the familiar face. If Chloe had lived to be twelve or thirteen, she would have looked like this girl.

  Joy’s blue eyes went from Haley to Tank, and she brightened. “Hey, Tank. How’re Brooke and Libby?”

  “They’re just fine, Joy. I brought someone to meet you.”

  Joy’s curious gaze went to Haley. Haley’s throat constricted, and her lips parted. This young girl had enjoyed the love Haley had always craved, but Haley couldn’t hate her like she wanted to. A curious mixture of pity, curiosity, and affection surprised her. Maybe it was because of her uncanny resemblance to Chloe.

  Haley wet her lips. “I’m Haley. Haley Walsh.”

  Joy stared, and her gaze traveled from the top of Haley’s auburn curls to her crutches and missing leg. “You’re Haley? I thought—” She broke off.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” Her lips trembled.

  “Would you like to go for some ice cream?” Tank put in. “The two of you can get to know one another.”

  “She has work to do,” the woman objected.

  Joy turned pleading eyes to the hard-faced woman. “Please, Alice,” she begged.

  Alice gnawed on her lip, then glanced at her watch. “Half an hour. You be back before Craig gets home from work.”

  “Okay.” Joy handed her the child and stepped outside.

  Conscious of the girl’s rapt expression, Haley wished she could dig out what her parents had led Joy to believe. But did she really want to know?

  The small ice cream shop, decorated in red and white, reminded Haley of a Steak ’n Shake in the Lower Forty-eight. The spotless black-and-white tile made an attractive contrast to the rest of the place. Rescue workers and their dogs crowded the café. Haley perched on a red stool at a black Formica table and tried to think of how to open the conversation with Joy. Tank seemed to have no trouble. The young girl chattered to him about school, her friends, and her pet cat. A pet. That might be common ground.

  “I have a dachshund named Oscar,” Haley said. She pulled her camera to her face and snapped some pictures of the room, then took several pictures of Joy.

  “Oh, you have to enter him in the wiener-dog race today!” Joy’s dark eyes sparked with enthusiasm. “It’s so fun to watch.”

  “I don’t know,” Haley began. “I don’t know anything about training for a race.”

  “I’ll help you,” Joy said. “Can we go meet Oscar after we eat our ice cream?”

  Haley glanced at Tank. He was watching them with an expression that said, How are you going to get out of this? She lifted her chin to meet the challenge in his eyes. “Sure, we’ll do that if we have time.”

  The light in Joy’s eyes faded. “Oh, that’s right, I have to get home.”

  “How is it at the Worleys’?” Tank’s voice was gentle.

  “It’s okay. It’s not like it was with Maggie and Dad, but it’s okay.” Joy’s eyes were moist. She looked at Haley.

  “Are you here to figure out who killed them?”

  Haley sat back in her chair and exhaled. “I heard you don’t think it was an accident.”

  Joy shook her head. “Do we have to talk about it now? I wanted to get to know you first. Otherwise you might think I’m crazy.” She tipped her head to one side. “You look like Maggie. She had hair your color.”

  “Someone else told me that,” Haley blurted, then wished she’d kept silent. Her admission would prove to Joy that she didn’t know her own mother. “And you look like . . .” She looked down at her hands.

  “Like Chloe?” Joy nodded. “Everyone says that. We both look like Dad.”

  “How did you come to live with my, er, our parents?” Haley asked. She’d work up to asking about the fire later.

  Joy examined Haley’s face. “Mama was an archeologist who worked with your parents. Your mom was sick, and I guess Dad noticed Mama. I didn’t know who my dad was until Mama died in a diabetic coma when I was at school one day. I freaked at first, sure I was going to get stuck living with my aunt and uncle Worley. Our lawyer gave me a letter from Mama that told me everything and said I was to go to my father if anything happened to her. It was pretty wild going to the door that first time. I was scared, but Dad took me right in. And Maggie was great to me right off.” Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “I know now it was because I looked so much like Chloe. I didn’t know for a long time that they had another daughter. It was kind of weird the way they never talked about you.”

  Haley’s eyes burned, and she couldn’t have vocalized a sound past the lump in her throat if her life had depended on it. This wasn’t news to her, so why was she upset? She took several shallow breaths and willed herself not to feel the ache in her heart.

  “What did you do?” Joy asked. “They always acted like it was too shameful to talk about. There’s nothing that bad.”

  Haley looked into Joy’s curious eyes. “Chloe was the perfect child. I don’t remember ever hearing her cry. I was into one scrape after another. It was natural they would prefer her.”

  “Parents aren’t supposed to play favorites,” Tank said.

  “Maybe not, but it was hard not to with Chloe. She brightened all our lives.”

  “So what did you do?” Joy asked again. “Something you did when you were a kid is nothing to get a wedgie over.” She took a bite of her ice cream.

  It would have been so easy to accept Joy’s way out, to not take the blame for what happened, but Haley had to be honest. She shook her head. “I could be vindictive sometimes.”

  “All kids can be.”

  “Not to the extent I was.” Haley was suddenly tired of hiding the truth. Once they knew, they’d let her alone to take her pictures. She rubbed her forehead. “I killed my sister when I was eight.”

  Joy put her spoon down. “I’m sure it was accidental.”

  Haley shook her head. “Chloe had broken my favorite doll, and I hit her. I got in trouble when she cried, and I decided she needed to get in trouble herself.

  She was never in trouble, and though I loved her, I got tired of it sometimes.”

  “I can understand that,” Tank said.

  His soft voice urged her on. She’d show him there was nothing about her to be admired. “At an archeological dig in the Wrangell Mountains, there was an old mine we were never supposed to go into. It wasn’t safe.

  We were camped there, and I talked Chloe into going with me to explore. I was going to tell my mother that it was Chloe’s idea.” She smiled. “Stupid, really. My parents knew both our temperaments well enough to know whose idea it was. But I was only eight, and it seemed perfectly logical then.”

  She took a deep breath. “We went to the mine. I had a flashlight, and we went down a narrow tunnel that looked interesting. We were just about to go back when it fell in.” Even now, she could
smell the choking dust, hear Chloe’s screams. And her own. “We were trapped by the cave-in, and we just had to hope our parents would find us in time. Rocks fell on both of us. That’s how I lost my leg.”

  She patted her pant leg where it ended below the knee. “But Chloe died. Not right away. My flashlight was lost in the cave-in, and I talked to her through the hours. Her voice kept getting weaker and weaker. Finally, she didn’t answer no matter how much I begged.” She fell silent. A fresh wave of grief overwhelmed her. “I loved her so much,” she choked. “I never wanted to hurt her.”

  “You were just a child.” Tank’s big hand covered hers. “You can’t blame yourself.”

  Haley didn’t look at him or Joy, but pushed on to finish the story. “My parents were devastated. They tried to pick up the pieces at first—to go on loving me. But gradually the full story came out about how I wanted to punish Chloe. They changed after that. A month later they sent me to my grandmother.”

  “Did they never come to see you?” Joy’s voice was a horrified whisper. “I can’t believe it. They were always so kind to me.”

  “I saw them a couple of times,” Haley admitted. “They came home one year for Christmas, and another time they visited on my birthday. I ran to hug my mother, but she pushed me away.” She noticed the horror and censure on the faces of her companions. “It’s okay,” she assured them. “I got used to it. And my grandmother filled the void. She loves me in spite of my faults.”

  Tears were streaming down Joy’s face. “I hate them,” she muttered. “How could they?”

  “They were right,” Haley said. “I deserved their hatred. I learned at an early age what I was capable of. I’ve never forgotten it, and I’ve tried so hard to become a better person because of it.”

  Tank shook his head. “You were their daughter. Parents are supposed to have unconditional love for their children.”

  “I don’t blame them. I have to pay for my mistakes. That’s justice.”

  Tank took her hand. “It’s time you forgave yourself and put it behind you. You were a kid, Haley. Kids are kids. You didn’t maliciously set out to hurt her.”