Alaskan Mountain Attack

by Sarah Varland

  “Are you up for it today? I know we’ve already done a lot.”

  He didn’t mean it as a challenge, but Piper raised an eyebrow anyway. “I think I can keep up with you pretty well, Judah.”

  “You definitely can.” He grinned.

  Maybe that was what appealed to her most about him. He didn’t seem like he needed to outdo her. Back when they had been climbing partners briefly, it had never seemed like he was trying to push her too far, or to show off in front of her. He’d encouraged her to do her best and he’d done his and they’d just...matched.

  Piper couldn’t remember the last time she was so thankful to be wrong. Or the last time she had been so thankful for second chances.

  “If we’re going to go to the recovery site of the woman who drowned, we’re going to need to go to SAR headquarters and get an airboat.”

  “Is it okay for you to do that?”

  Piper nodded. “It shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll call Jake just to be sure.” Jake Stone, the head of Raven Pass Search and Rescue, tended to be understanding about things like this. As long as it wasn’t currently needed and she was prepared to take the boat back in the event that it was needed for a rescue, she was fairly certain he would say it was fine.

  A quick phone call confirmed that.

  “We’re all set. The boat is in town at headquarters and we can trailer it to the river and I’ll show you.”

  When they arrived at the building that housed their search and rescue equipment and a small office, Piper got everything set up. Judah helped wherever he could, but this was a dance she’d done many times. So mostly he stayed back and let her do what she needed to do, asking occasionally what help she needed.

  It was nice, feeling that they worked well as a team.

  When they were loaded, they hitched the trailer to Judah’s car. At the river, they put on life jackets and then Piper maneuvered the boat into the water without too much trouble.

  Navigating up the river was a different story. The current fought hard, like it always did, and although it was something Piper was fairly used to, she would never say that she was comfortable on rivers like this one. It wasn’t just the rapids that made this river a challenge. It was the tide, as well, the extremes with which it came in and went out, the dangerous rocks, and the thick glacial silt that made the water heavier and thicker than a normal river. That was part of what made Fourteen-Mile River so dangerous; someone couldn’t fall in and easily swim out. If someone fell in and SAR was called to the scene, it was usually going to be for a recovery, even with a life jacket. The glacial silt pulled people under and ran too fast for someone to have much of a chance of survival. True river rescues were rare here in this corner of Alaska.

  “I’m going to run us upriver as far as her campsite,” Piper said, loudly enough to be heard over the roar of the fan. “I want you to see where she was staying so you can get a sense of the entire scene.”

  “Sounds good,” Judah shouted back.

  They continued up the river, Piper struck as she always was by the bright blue of the water. The river narrowed as they continued. She squinted at the shore to try to remember the exact spot. There.

  “They were camping right here.” She motioned to the side.

  “Can we beach it?”

  “We can. It’ll take some maneuvering because the current is so strong, but...” Piper worked the rudders and within a few minutes had beached them.

  Judah climbed out of the boat first, and Piper followed. The wet gravel sank underneath her hiking boots and crunched as they walked up the shore toward the dirt. “The tent was set up right here.” Piper pointed. The now-bare grassy spot sat beside a firepit ringed with rocks. It was an ideal place to camp, provided people stayed away from the river, lest they fall in unexpectedly.

  It was probably a peaceful place, to anyone who didn’t know its history. To Piper, even the soft wind in the trees, rustling the leaves, sounded like a sad song. This place represented failure, to her. There had been nothing she could have done differently to save the woman who had died not far from here, she knew that. But it didn’t ease the sting at all. Piper wanted to save them all, and in search and rescue work, it just wasn’t possible.

  “There was no reason at the time to suspect foul play. The victim—Nichole Richards—seemed to have just gone on a walk and fallen in. It was August, so it was late enough in the summer that it was starting to be dark late at night. It was a story that made sense. The victim had no in-state family, and out-of-state family believed the ‘fell in the river’ story also. There was an autopsy done, I think I mentioned to you, but it seemed to confirm the assumptions.”

  “Do you think the ME who did the autopsy refused to see something on purpose or was part of a cover-up?”

  Piper was already shaking her head. “You can check out that angle if you think you need to, but no, I don’t. There was nothing glaring. It was just with my own experiences... Well, honestly I thought I was letting my own past play too much into my interpretations. At the time someone leaving bruises was almost more plausible to me than rocks leaving them.”

  “I hate that you went through that.”

  His voice was low, somewhere between sympathetic and indignant. Piper was almost glad for Drew’s sake that he’d moved out of state long ago. Judah, she was fairly certain, would like to put a fist in his face.

  “I’m okay now. Don’t forget that.” She fully believed it to be true. Her past was just that. And yes, there’d been a lot of work and healing that had to take place, but now it was nothing but a bad memory. It didn’t affect her life anymore at all. Well, sometimes she still wrestled with the idea that she should have reported him to the police—she hadn’t at the time. But besides that, he didn’t affect her anymore.

  Right? Piper hoped he didn’t. But she also knew she might be fooling herself. Someone didn’t walk away from a relationship like that completely unscathed.

  “I’ll try.”

  Judah kept walking around. He was taking it all in, Piper guessed. Obviously too much time had passed for there to be much evidence, but he checked anyway.

  “Pretty sure in the year since it happened any footprints or anything will be gone,” she joked.

  “Clothing fibers might not be, though.”

  He was serious and Piper smiled. The man was intense when he was doing his job. “I hadn’t thought about that,” she admitted.

  He continued searching, walking deeper into the woods.

  “I’ll just come with you,” she muttered as the followed. The last thing she wanted was to be left alone when she didn’t have a weapon or any kind of protection with her.

  “Where are you going?” Piper finally asked.

  Judah turned and looked back at her. “I’m not sure, to be honest. I just noticed this trail and wanted to check it out. It’s possible the killer used it to access the camping site.”

  Not just possible, but likely. The woods near the river weren’t so thick that they couldn’t be hiked through, but people tended to take the path of least resistance. He was right to look around back here, Piper knew, but she was tired of being here.

  Tired of this whole thing, actually.

  They walked back to the tent site. Judah was still in investigating mode. Piper looked out across the river, mostly to take her mind off what he was doing. It was getting overwhelming, all of this. Once again, she was reminded that there was a reason she hadn’t chosen any kind of investigative career. This was wearing on her, heart and soul. Piper was ready for it to be over.

  * * *

  Judah continued searching the area, making mental notes about how close the river was from the spot Piper thought they had camped, and decided that he wanted to read this report when he got back to the police department.

  He glanced over at Piper and found her staring out at the river. He walked in that direct
ion.

  “You okay?”

  She jumped.

  “Whoa.” Judah rested his hand on her arm. She looked over at him. Her eyes seemed darker than usual. Like she’d been crying and the color had gotten more vivid.

  “Hey, what’s wrong?”

  At first she didn’t answer, just looked up at him, blinking. He felt bad for thinking she was beautiful at a time like this, when she probably would rather have sympathy than admiration, but he couldn’t help but notice. It wasn’t just her physical appearance. He’d heard that some people’s internal attributes made them even more attractive, but he’d never seen how true it could be until Piper.

  “This is just more than I’m used to doing. It’s a lot.” She sighed, frustration evident in the way she scrunched her entire face into a frown. “I hate knowing someone wants to kill me. I hate knowing someone might have murdered a woman here...”

  And that she couldn’t save her, Judah would guess, was also part of it. But yes, he knew what she meant. This place felt off somehow. Like the landscape itself was sad about what had happened here.

  “I’ve got all I need. We can go if you’re ready.”

  “Yeah, I’ve got no reason to stay.” Piper was back to the boat almost before Judah could follow her there.

  She started it up with the same professionalism she had shown earlier. It was still fun to watch her do something she was so good at, though.

  He wanted to talk to her about that, about so many other things, but he knew he should stay focused on the case.

  “And then where was her body recovered?” he asked Piper.

  “Right up here.” The boat continued forward. “Right at this point.”

  Judah nodded. “Okay, I can see where it would have...caught.” A branch overhung the river and created a tangle of weeds at the edge.

  “Yeah, and...”

  Judah heard something snap. Something metal.

  His gaze immediately went to Piper.

  Her jaw tightened. “This is bad.”

  “What’s bad?”

  She was shaking her head, messing with the mechanics of the boat. The fan was still spinning in the back, but their course seemed more erratic than before.

  “I can’t...”

  Piper looked up at him, terror written on her face. “Something’s wrong. I can’t steer.”

  The craft was still powering forward, but when she moved the steering mechanism, the fan didn’t respond. The boat dipped down, tossed around in the rapids. Whereas before it had felt like the craft was skimming the top of the water, strong enough to overcome some of the turbulence, now it felt like they were at the river’s mercy.

  God, what do we do now? Judah half wondered, half prayed. Wholeheartedly hoped for an answer.

  They were both wearing life jackets, so that was good. He was trying to focus on the positives, but hurtling down the river toward the inlet without any way to steer didn’t exactly lend itself to that.

  “This is bad. It’s really bad.” Piper’s usually positive face was stricken, her eyes wide.

  “What can I do to help?” he asked, in case there was a way.

  Piper shook her head and met his eyes with an intensity that seemed to say there was nothing to do.

  Still, Judah wished he knew some way to make the situation better or what to suggest, but he wasn’t familiar with this kind of boat, and even if he was, he had a feeling it wasn’t a fix one could easily do on the fly. Piper’s expression had confirmed that.

  He also had the feeling this hadn’t just happened by accident. They’d walked away from the boat, taken for granted that no one was following them today.

  Judah had forgotten, somehow, that whoever was after Piper wasn’t indiscriminately shooting at her. Instead, they seemed to be trying to make her death look like an accident.

  Just like they’d made several other deaths or near deaths look like accidents.

  It felt, Judah realized as they hit another rapid and he lost his balance, more like a professional killer who was used to cleaning up messes and hiding them.

  It was the last thought he had before he went underwater.

  * * *

  The icy water sucked the air from Judah’s lungs as soon as he hit it. He’d never understood how that worked, but it took so much energy out of a person that even a good swimmer was rendered relatively hopeless after being submerged for a little while.

  His head dipped as the current pulled him and Judah kicked his legs to give himself more flotation. Piper! Where was Piper? She was a strong swimmer but was already bruised from the recent attack against her, already worn out. What if she needed his help? He looked around for her, feeling water spray off his hair as he did so. The boat was farther downstream than he’d have expected.

  Was she still on it? Could she be?

  Judah didn’t have long in, he knew. He had to get out. Hadn’t they just talked about how this river meant almost certain death if someone fell in it? Well, there was a key word to that. Almost. His police training had provided some survival skills, too.

  Still, he had never had training specific to this situation. Really, he was flying blind, but Judah didn’t like that. He needed to feel confident, like the odds were not stacked against him.

  He swam hard with his legs, and the current pulled him forward. He kicked sideways, toward the shore.

  Painfully little progress that way.

  Judah fought hard against the current, aimed for shore as he passed a limb and reached for it. He missed, his hands empty, falling face-first into the water. The sound of the splash was swallowed up by the raging current. This wasn’t working. Maybe panic made you immediately exhaust yourself trying to get out.

  He couldn’t fight the current, that much was becoming clear. So working with it was his best option.

  And Piper?

  “Judah!” He heard a shout.

  There, not as far downriver as he was. They must have fallen off at the same time. Why was she so far behind?

  She could have gotten stuck on the rocks underneath and only just now made it up. That was a terrifying thought.

  “Diagonal!” she yelled. At least, that was what he heard.

  Judah frowned at her.

  “Swim diagonal!”

  Of course. He should have realized that. Judah did his best to relax, to gather strength. Then he took a deep breath, angling himself toward the shore at a diagonal, as Piper had said. As he swam, he prayed that Piper was okay. Everything in him wanted to rescue her, but the truth was that he’d probably drown them both if he tried. This was one of her strengths. This time taking care of her meant letting her handle herself, not trying to act like he could do better.

  Help her get out, God. Helps us both get out.

  Judah’s hands barely caught on the edge of the riverbank, but he couldn’t get a grip. Rocks, including the one he tried to grab, loosened from the shore and fell into the river, and slid back in the water. Another deep breath. More kicking.

  He grabbed at the shore again. This time his hands burned from the friction against the rock, the way the jagged corners dug into his skin, but he didn’t let go.

  The river didn’t take him.

  He held on for another few seconds, not daring to rest longer, then took a deep breath and pulled himself out.

  He was on the ground. He’d made it. Judah rolled over, sat up and looked back at the river, looking for Piper.

  But he couldn’t see her.

  Not anywhere.

  ELEVEN

  Piper realized she never should have made that mistake. She had seen that Judah was close to the south edge of the river, on their left, as they were swept downstream. Rather than swim to her side, she’d tried to head for his so they wouldn’t be separated.

  Now she was running out of energy. Her mind had started
to detach herself from the situation a little, to assess it scientifically. She would soon start to slip underwater. Then the rule of threes started to kick in. Three minutes without oxygen.

  She needed so much more than three more minutes to live. She had things to do with her life, people to save.

  A man to spend time with, decide if these feelings she had for him were the permanent, lasting kind.

  Piper just could not die.

  Had the boat breaking been an accident? It seemed impossible. The SAR team couldn’t afford for the gear to be less than fully functional, so care was taken to service it properly and double-check—no, triple-check—everything that could possibly go wrong.

  Piper had just done a pre-trip safety check before they’d been out today, which meant...someone was trying to kill her. Again. Still. Why had she left the boat unattended earlier when they’d walked around to investigate the area where Nichole Richards had disappeared? It hadn’t crossed her mind that someone could tamper with their transportation. And if they broke something on the fan, it wouldn’t matter when it broke, just that it did. Then they’d be helpless in the water.

  That was how Piper felt right now. Helpless.

  Hopeless.

  Like this was it.

  She felt her chest tightening from the cold and the exhaustion, and reminded herself that right now she was okay. This was her body’s natural response to the water temperature.

  She’d made it to the left-hand side of the river, but her arms were so exhausted from the swim that she was having trouble getting a good grip on the riverbank’s rocky edges. One more good try. She’d put everything she had into this one and hope for the best.

  And pray that if it didn’t work, then something else would happen.

  “Piper!” She heard Judah shout but couldn’t find him. She couldn’t afford to use the energy it would take to look around. Instead she took a slow deep breath in, then reached for the shore.