by Nora Roberts
"Always something." He tipped down a pair of metal-framed reading glasses to get a better view of Nate. "Long trip."
"It was," Nate agreed.
"Not over yet." Shoving his glasses back into place, The Professor went back to his book.
"And this handsome devil is Jesse, Rose's boy."
The boy kept his head bent over his coloring book, but lifted his gaze so his big, dark eyes peered out under a thick fringe of black bangs. He reached out, tugged Hopp's parka so that she bent down to hear his whisper.
"Don't you worry. We'll get him one."
The door behind the bar swung open and a big, black truck in a big, white apron came out. "Big Mike," Hopp announced. "He's the cook. Was a Navy man until one of our local girls caught his eye when she was down in Kodiak."
"Snared me like a trout," Big Mike said with a grin. "Welcome to Lunacy."
"Thanks."
"We're going to want something good and hot for our new chief of police.
"Fish chowder's good today," Big Mike told her. "Ought to do the trick. Unless you'd rather bite into some red meat, chief."
It took Nate a moment to identify himself as chief. A moment when he felt every eye in the room focused on him. "Chowder's fine. Sounds good."
"We'll have it right up for you then." He swung back into the kitchen, and Nate could hear his bone-deep baritone croon out on "Baby, It's Cold Outside."
Stage set, postcard, he thought. Or a play. Anyway you sliced it, he felt like some sort of dusty prop.
Hopp held up a finger to hold Nate in place before marching into the lobby. He watched her scoot around the counter and snag a key from one of the cubbies.
As she did, the door behind the counter swung open. And the bombshell walked out.
She was blonde—as Nate thought suited bombshells best—with the wavy mass of sunlight hair spilling down to brush very impressive breasts that were showcased by the low scoop of her snug, blue sweater. It took him a minute to get to the face as the sweater was tucked into jeans so tight they must have bruised several internal organs.
Not that he was complaining.
The face boasted bright blue eyes with an innocence in direct contrast with the plump, red lips. She was a little generous on the paint, and put him in mind of a Barbie doll.
Man-killer Barbie.
Despite the restriction of the outfit, everything that could jiggle did so as she strolled around the counter on skinny, backless heels, wiggled her way into the diner. And posed languidly against the bar.
"Well, hello, handsome."
Her voice was a throaty purr—she must've practiced it—designed to drain the blood out of a man's head and send his IQ plummeting to that of a green turnip.
"Charlene, you behave." Hopp rattled the key. "This boy's tired and half sick. He doesn't have the reserves to deal with you right now. Chief Burke, Charlene Hidel. This is her place. Town budget's paying your room and board here as part of your pay, so don't feel obliged to offer anything out in trade."
"Hopp, you're so bad." But Charlene smiled like a stroked kitten as she said it. "Why don't I just take you up, Chief Burke, get you all settled in? Then we'll bring you something hot to eat."
"I'll take him up." Deliberately Hopp closed her fist around the key, letting the big black room number tag dangle. "Jerk's bringing in his gear. Wouldn't hurt to have Rose bring him the chowder Mike's dishing up for him though. Come on, Ignatious. You can socialize when you're not so ready to drop."
He could've spoken for himself, but he didn't see the point. He followed Hopp through a doorway and up a flight of steps as obediently as a puppy follows its master.
He heard someone mutter, "Cheechako," in the tone a man uses to spit out bad meat. He assumed it was an insult, but let it go.
"Charlene doesn't mean any harm," Hopp was saying. "But she does like to tease a man to death given half a chance."
"Don't worry about me, Mom."
She gave that foghorn laugh again, and slid the key into the lock on room 203.
"Man took off on her about fifteen years back, left her with a girl to raise on her own. Did a decent enough job with Meg, though they're at each other like she-cats half the time. Had plenty of men since, and they get younger every year. I said she was too old for you before." Hopp looked over her shoulder. "Fact is, the way she's been going, you're too old for her. Thirty-two, aren't you?"
"I was when I left Baltimore. How many years ago was that?"
Hopp shook her head, pushed open the door. "Charlene's got better than a dozen years on you. Got a grown daughter nearly your age. Might want to keep that in mind."
"I thought you women got off when one of your kind bags a younger man."
"Shows what you know about females. Pisses us off is what it does, because we didn't bag him first. Well, this is it."
He stepped into a wood-paneled room with an iron bed, a dresser and mirror on one side, and a small round table, two chairs and a little desk on the other.
It was clean, it was spare and about as interesting as a bag of white rice.
"Little kitchen through here." Hopp walked over, yanked back a blue curtain to reveal a pint-sized refrigerator, a two-burner stove and a sink the size of Nate's cupped palm. "Unless cooking's your passion or hobby, I'd take my meals downstairs. Food's good here.
"It's not the Ritz, and she's got fancier rooms, but we're on a budget." She crossed to the other side, pushed open a door. "Bathroom. This one has indoor plumbing."
"Woo-hoo." He poked his head in.
The sink was bigger than the kitchen s but not by much. It didn't rate a tub, but the shower stall would do him well enough.
"Got your gear, chief." Jerk hauled in two suitcases and a duffel as if they were empty. He dumped them on the bed where their weight sagged the mattress. "Need me for anything, I'll be downstairs grabbing a meal. I'll bunk here tonight, fly back to Talkeetna in the morning."
He tapped a finger on his forehead in salute and clomped out again.
"Shit. Hold on." Nate started to dig into his pocket.
"I'll take care of tipping him," Hopp said. "Till you're on the clock, you're a guest of the Lunacy town council."
"Appreciate it."
"I plan to see you work for it, so we'll see how it goes."
"Room service!" Charlene sang it when she carried a tray into the room. Her hips swayed like a metronome as she walked over to set it on the table. "Brought you up some nice fish chowder, chief, and a good man-sized sandwich. Coffee's hot."
"Smells great. I appreciate it, Ms. Hidel."
"Oh now, that's Charlene to you." She batted the baby blues, and yeah, Nate thought, she practiced. "We're just one big happy family around here."
"That were the case, we wouldn't need a chief of police."
"Oh, don't go scaring him off, Hopp. Is the room all right for you, Ignatious?"
"Nate. Yes, thanks. It's fine."
"Put some food in your belly and get some rest," Hopp advised. "You get your second wind, just give me a call. I'll show you around. Your first official duty will be attending the meeting tomorrow afternoon at Town Hall, where we'll introduce you to everybody who cares to attend. You'll want to see the station house before that, meet your two deputies and Peach. And we'll get you that star."
"Star?"
"Jesse wanted to make sure you were getting a star. Come on, Charlene. Let's leave the man alone."
"You call downstairs you need any little thing." Charlene sent him an invitational smile. "Any little thing."
Behind Charlene's back, Hopp rolled her eyes toward heaven. To settle the matter, she clamped a hand on Charlene's arm, yanked her toward the door. There was a clatter of heels on wood, a feminine squeak, then the slam of the door behind them.
Through it, Nate could hear Charlene's hushed and insulted: "What's the matter with you, Hopp. I was only being friendly."
"There's innkeeper friendly, then there's bordello friendly. One of these days, you're
going to figure out the difference."
He waited until he was sure they were gone before he crossed over to flip the locks. Then he pulled off his parka, let it fall to the floor, dragged off his watch cap, dropped it. Unwound his scarf, dropped that. Unzipped his insulated vest and added it to the heap.
Down to shirt, pants, thermal underwear and boots, he went to the table, picked up the soup, a spoon, and carried both to the dark windows.
Three-thirty in the afternoon, according to the bedside clock—and dark as midnight. There were streetlights glowing, he noted as he spooned up soup, and he could make out the shapes of buildings. Christmas decorations in colored lights, in rooftop Santas and cartoon reindeers.
But no people, no life, no movement.
He ate mechanically, too tired, too hungry to notice the taste.
There was nothing out that window but the movie set, he thought. The buildings might have been false fronts, the handful of people he'd met downstairs just characters in the illusion.
Maybe this was all some elaborate hallucination, born out of depression, grief, anger—whatever ugly mix had sent him pinwheeling into the void.
He'd wake up back in his own place in Baltimore and try to drum up the energy to go through the motions for another day.
He got the sandwich, ate that standing at the window as well, looking out at the empty black-and-white world with its oddly celebrational lights.
Maybe he'd walk out there, into that empty world. He'd become a character in the odd illusion. Then he'd fade to black, like the last reel of an old movie. And it would be over.
As he stood, half thinking it could be over, half wishing it would be, a figure stepped into frame. It wore red—bright and bold—that seemed to leap out of that colorless scene and thrum movement into it.
Those movements were definite and brisk. Life with a mission, movement with purpose. Quick, competent strides over the white that left the shadow of footprints in the snow.
I was here. I'm alive and I was here.
He couldn't tell if it was a man or woman, or a child, but there was something about the slash of color, the confidence of the gait, that caught his eye and interest.
As if sensing observation, the figure stopped, looked up.
Nate had the impression of white and black again. White face, black hair. But even that was blurred with the dark and the distance.
There was a long moment of stillness, of silence. Then the figure began to walk again, striding toward The Lodge, and disappearing from view.
Nate yanked the drapes over the glass, stepped away from the window.
After a moment's debate, he dragged his cases off the bed, left them dumped, unpacked, on the floor.
He stripped down, ignored the chill of the room against his naked skin, and crawled under the mountain of blankets the way a bear crawls into his winter cave.
He lay there, a man of thirty-two with a thick, disordered mass of chestnut hair that waved around a long, thin face gone lax with exhaustion and a despair that blurred eyes of smoky gray. Under a day's worth of stubble, his skin was pale with the drag of fatigue. Though the food had eased the rawness in his belly, his system remained sluggish, like that of a man who couldn't quite shake off a debilitating flu.
He wished Barbie—Charlene—had brought up a bottle instead of the coffee. He wasn't much of a drinker, which he figured is what had saved him from spiraling into alcoholism along with everything else. Still, a couple of good belts would help turn off his brain and let him sleep.
He could hear the wind now. It hadn't been there before, but it was moaning at the windows. With it, he heard the building creak and the sound of his own breathing.
Three lonely sounds only more lonely as a trio.
Tune them out, he told himself. Tune them all out.
He'd get a couple hours' sleep, he thought. Then he'd shower off the travel grime, pump himself full of coffee.
After that, he'd decide what the hell he was going to do.
He turned off the light so the room plunged into the dark. Within seconds, so did he.
Two
The dark surrounded him, sucked at him like mud when the dream shoved him out of sleep. His breath whooshed out as he broke the surface, floundered his way to the air. His skin was clammy with sweat as he fought his way clear of blankets.
The scent in the air was unfamiliar—cedar, stale coffee, some underlying tone of lemon. Then he remembered he wasn't in his Baltimore apartment.
He'd gone crazy, and he was in Alaska.
The luminous dial of the bedside clock read five forty-eight.
So he'd gotten some sleep before the dream had chased him back to reality.
It was always dark in the dream, too. Black night, pale, dirty rain. The smell of cordite and blood.
Jesus, Nate, Jesus. I'm hit.
Cold rain streaming down his face, warm blood oozing through his fingers. His blood, and Jack's blood.
He hadn't been able to stop the blood from oozing any more than he'd been able to stop the rain from streaming. They were both beyond him and, in that Baltimore alley, had washed away what had been left of him.
Should've been me, he thought. Not Jack. He should've been home with his wife, with his kids, and it should've been me dying in a filthy alley in the filthy rain.
But he'd gotten off with a bullet in the leg, and a second, in-and-out punch in the side just above the waist, just enough to take him down, slow him down, so Jack had gone in first.
Seconds, small mistakes, and a good man was dead.
He had to live with it. He'd considered ending his own life, but it was a selfish solution and did nothing to honor his friend, his partner. Living with it was harder than dying.
Living was more punishment.
He got up, walked into the bathroom. He found himself pathetically grateful for the thin spurt of hot water out of the shower head. It was going to take a while for the spurt to carve away what felt like layers of grime and sweat, but that was okay. Time wasn't a problem.
He'd get himself dressed, go downstairs, have some coffee. Maybe he'd give Mayor Hopp a call and go down to take a look at the station house. See if he could be a little more coherent and brush off some of that first impression of a bleary-eyed moron.
He felt more like himself once he'd showered and shaved. Digging out fresh clothes, he layered himself into them.
Picking up his outdoor gear, he glanced at himself in the mirror. "Chief of Police Ignatious Burke, Lunacy, Alaska." He shook his head, nearly smiled. "Well, chief, let's go get you a star."
He headed downstairs, surprised at the relative quiet. From what he'd read, places like The Lodge were the gathering spots for locals. Winter nights were long and dark and lonely, and he'd expected to hear some bar noise, maybe the clatter of pool balls, some ancient country-western tune from the juke.
But when he stepped in, the beautiful Alaskan Rose was topping off coffee, much as she'd been before.
It might've been for the same two men, Nate wasn't sure. Her boy was sitting at a table, coloring industriously.
Nate checked the watch he'd set to local time. Seven-ten.
Rose turned from the table, smiled at him. "Chief."
"Quiet tonight."
Her whole face lit with a smile. "It's morning."
