Face Off

by Brenda Novak

  “This is the wolf, huh?” she said as Amarok offered his hand.

  Evelyn was so preoccupied with everything that had been going on, she didn’t immediately realize her sister was referring to the meaning of Amarok’s nickname. It took a second to make the connection, even though it should’ve been obvious, so then she laughed. “Yes.”

  Brianne made a show of looking him over. “Well, I can see why you might not care to return to Boston.”

  While she said that as a joke, one that would tease her and flatter Amarok, who winked at her, Evelyn detected a note of bitterness in her sister’s voice. Brianne didn’t think it was fair that Evelyn was here, chasing her dream and living with such an attractive man, while she was at home, the only one close enough to offer any real support to their parents. And Evelyn couldn’t entirely blame her.

  Although that inference hit a sensitive spot, Evelyn kept her pleasant expression firmly in place. “The weather’s getting worse as the day wears on,” she said. “We’d better grab your luggage and head back. Otherwise, we could be cut off.”

  Brianne’s eyes widened. “From Hilltop?”

  “Of course.”

  “How often does that happen?”

  Amarok answered, “Fairly often during the winter. But the closure never lasts long. We’re used to a lot of snow here in Alaska.”

  “Didn’t you tell me a large number of your COs live in Anchorage?” she asked. “What happens if they can’t get to work?”

  “A certain number of COs remain on call during the winter months. If we’re expecting bad weather, we’ll have a relief crew stay in a dorm-like situation, in case they’re needed.”

  “How often have you had to do that?”

  Evelyn slipped her arm through Brianne’s and guided her out as Amarok brought the luggage. “Only in rare instances.”

  They’d reached the parking lot and Amarok was loading Brianne’s bags when Brianne’s phone went off.

  “That’s probably Mom, checking to make sure you’ve arrived safely,” Evelyn said as her sister got out her phone, but she could tell by the look on Brianne’s face that Brianne didn’t recognize the number.

  “No, it’s a nine-oh-seven area code.…”

  “That’s from here in Alaska,” Evelyn said, and Amarok chimed in.

  “Answer it!”

  She didn’t have time to question him without missing the call and he was adamant, so she pressed the Talk button and said hello. A second later, she handed the phone to Amarok. “It’s for you.”

  Evelyn frowned at the man she loved. “You gave someone Brianne’s number?”

  “Sorry, I should’ve mentioned it. I didn’t want to be out of reach for too long,” he explained, and put the phone to his ear. “No kidding? When?” His eyebrows knitted as he spoke to whoever it was, probably Phil. “Okay, we were just about to head back. We’ll go to the coroner’s instead. Get hold of Leland Yerbowitz and send him to meet us. If it’s her, he should be able to make the identification.”

  Evelyn could hardly wait until he got off the phone. “They’ve found Sierra?”

  “They’ve found two bodies, both of them female. I don’t know that one is Sierra, but…”

  Evelyn clutched her purse tightly. “But…”

  “They’re both the right age, both white. And one has a chunk missing from her scalp.”

  Brianne scowled as she touched Amarok’s arm. “Wait, the woman who’s gone missing—the one you told me about on the phone—has been murdered? And someone else was killed, as well?”

  “Looks that way.” He handed the phone back.

  Brianne shifted her attention to Evelyn. “Don’t you ever get sick of … of evil and death?”

  “Of course I do,” Evelyn replied. “What do you think I’m doing up here?”

  “Whatever you’re doing doesn’t seem to be working,” she grumbled.

  Before Evelyn could respond, Amarok held up the keys he’d taken from her so he could load Brianne’s bags. “I’ll drive.”

  As they climbed in, Evelyn told herself not to respond to Brianne’s remark. Her family didn’t understand what was at stake—that someone had to fight back. Society would never get ahead of the psychopathy problem otherwise.

  The radio came on the second Amarok started the engine. Evelyn let music fill the silence for a minute or two. Then she asked, “How’re Mom and Dad?”

  “Worried about you,” Brianne said. “But they’ve spent most of your life being worried about you, so I guess nothing’s really changed.”

  There was that note of bitterness again. The news they’d just received about those bodies hadn’t put Brianne in a better mood—and of course it wouldn’t.

  Hoping to distract her with a more personal conversation, Evelyn turned so she could see her sister. “And Jeff?”

  Brianne shifted her gaze. “I don’t want to talk about him right now.”

  Amarok took Evelyn’s hand as they turned out of the airport. She recalled that he’d guessed something was up with Brianne’s love life; this seemed to confirm it.

  “Is everything okay, Bri?” Evelyn asked.

  Brianne stared out the window. “Everything’s fine with me. You’re the one who has another psycho on the loose.”

  Evelyn drew a deep breath. She wasn’t sure having Brianne in town was going to make her life any easier, but she understood why Amarok had wanted her to come. “It might not be another psycho,” she admitted. “It might be the one I’ve been waiting for ever since he kidnapped me the first time.”

  Brianne returned her full attention to Evelyn. “You think Jasper’s here?”

  “I do. We both do.”

  “Why?”

  “Because two women have been murdered.”

  “But how could he hide out in such a small place? You’d recognize him right away, wouldn’t you?”

  “I’d like to think so. But it’s been more than twenty years. Who knows how he’s changed.”

  “Do you have any evidence that it’s Jasper?”

  “Nothing solid, but someone tried to kill Amarok last night at the cabin where Sierra Yerbowitz was abducted,” Evelyn said, and told her about the incident.

  “You shot him?” Brianne asked Amarok when Evelyn was done. “He’s wounded?”

  “He was bleeding when he left,” Amarok replied.

  “What are the chances that you hit him in the chest or somewhere that really matters?”

  Amarok shook his head. “I have no idea. Neither of us could see much of anything. But almost any injury can be lethal when it involves a bullet.”

  “Are you checking the hospitals, to see if someone was admitted with a gunshot wound last night?”

  “We just came from the cabin, so I haven’t had a chance to do much of anything. There’s no cell service where we live, remember? But once I get you and Evelyn home, I’ll be heading to my trooper post, and I’ll start calling the closest hospitals. I’ve already sent a guy who works with me—”

  “His name’s Phil,” Evelyn broke in. “He was the man on the phone.”

  “Anyway, Phil’s out talking to the locals,” Amarok went on. “We do a lot of our policing up here through informants and word of mouth. Between that and checking the businesses in town to see if anyone has called in sick, we should come up with a few leads.”

  “Does that mean you’ll be contacting the prison?” Brianne asked.

  “Absolutely,” he replied. “Hanover House is our biggest employer.”

  Evelyn couldn’t help feeling slightly defensive. “All the psychopaths at Hanover House are locked up.”

  “I’m checking everywhere,” Amarok reiterated.

  17

  Jasper couldn’t stop sweating. He kept wiping his upper lip and complaining that the heater was on too high, but no one else at Hanover Houser seemed to find it too warm. Was it the difficulty of doing his job with an arm that ached intolerably? The stress of going into the bathroom at every opportunity to make sure the banda
ge wasn’t getting too soaked? The resentment and anger he felt toward Amarok, which burned brighter with every wince?

  Or was it something even worse—was his gunshot wound getting infected?

  The fear of infection hovered constantly in the back of his mind. He’d read how quickly an open wound could turn septic, especially a gunshot wound, and how quickly sepsis could kill him. He needed rest in order to recover, but—he checked his watch—he had more than four hours to go before the end of his shift.

  How on earth would he make it?

  He had no idea, but he was determined not to succumb to the pain. He would not let Amarok beat him, even if he had to work with a bullet wound in both arms.

  At least it was almost time for lunch. Although he was tempted to spend that forty-five-minute period sitting in a bathroom stall so he could be alone—having to pretend he felt fine took too much added energy—disappearing would be a change from his normal routine, and he didn’t dare do anything different. That was why, when a CO named Sean Derby asked if he’d be playing poker with the other guards who had lunch at the same time, Jasper said yes.

  The next ten minutes ticked by so slowly, he ended up going to lunch a little early.

  Relieved to be the first to arrive in the break room, he closed his eyes and rested his head against the cool metal of the locker, where he’d put his heavy coat and other belongings before his shift. He couldn’t continue to function for much longer.…

  “Hey, you okay?”

  Straightening immediately, Jasper turned toward the voice. He’d expected footsteps to alert him if he had company, but he’d been so caught up in his own misery he hadn’t noticed Delbert Perez, who’d been around the prison much longer than Jasper, breeze in. Jasper hated Delbert simply because everyone else liked him. The dude didn’t have to try to make friends. He had natural charisma—a quality Jasper had never been able to emulate as effectively as he wanted. Although Jasper knew he had a face and body that women admired, and he used to be popular in high school, over the years he seemed to have lost his appeal to his own gender. He was rarely invited to any of the COs’ off-site get-togethers.

  But he didn’t care. He understood why. He was better than they were, and no man enjoyed being around a constant reminder of his own shortcomings. “I’m fine. Why?”

  Delbert opened his own locker and got out his lunch. “You just looked … I don’t know … upset or sick or something when I walked in.”

  “Went out last night, didn’t get enough sleep,” Jasper mumbled.

  Delbert gave him a libertine’s smile. “You see that stripper again?”

  Jasper had been bragging about his night with Bambi. He’d said she’d asked to go home with him and hadn’t charged him a dime. He hadn’t mentioned the enticement he’d used, of course. Why ruin the story? Any guy could pay for sex. “No.”

  “When you gonna call her?”

  “Maybe next weekend.” He wasn’t ever going to speak to her again, but no one would believe his night with her had been as spectacular as he claimed if he admitted that he had no interest in another round.

  “Where’d you go last night?”

  Why was Delbert being so damn nosey? Jasper felt a scowl yank at his features as hostility welled up. “It was just a regular bar. Does it matter?”

  Delbert blinked at his churlish response. “No, doesn’t matter to me at all,” he said, and carried his lunch to one of the three round tables in the break room.

  “Delbert! We playing a couple of hands of poker tonight, dude?” Massimo McKim, one of several COs who walked in together, was obviously excited to see Delbert, who somehow managed to turn any downtime into a party.

  “So long as you’re ready to lose your ass,” Delbert joked.

  As three other guys—Sean, who’d spoken to Jasper earlier about the poker game, Easy, who’d found that piece of Kat’s scalp, and a CO by the name of Skip Pence—retrieved their lunches and sat down, the banter continued. They all spoke to Delbert, but no one bothered to say much to Jasper.

  Assholes … Kicking himself for letting the pain and anger he felt creep into his voice while he was talking to Delbert, he grabbed his lunch and slammed his locker. When everyone’s heads whipped around at the loud bang, Jasper chuckled, but no one seemed to think he was very funny. Massimo went so far as to give him a dirty look.

  Growing even more morose than he’d been before coming on break, Jasper bought a soda from one of the vending machines that lined the wall and sat down. He had to eat exclusively with his right hand, which wasn’t too difficult since that was his dominant hand, but the constant pain radiating down his left made him sick to his stomach.

  Once they’d finished eating and Jasper had thrown the rest of his meal away so no one would notice how little he’d been able to choke down, Delbert brought out the cards. They were just picking up the hands he’d dealt when Amarok knocked on the open door and strode into the room.

  Although seeing the sergeant at the prison wasn’t entirely out of the ordinary, Jasper had never known him to visit the break room. Even Amarok’s attitude was different today. Everything about him said he was now acting in an Official Capacity.

  “Gentlemen, I’m sorry to interrupt your lunch,” he said, “but I’ve got a few questions I’d like to ask, if you don’t mind.”

  The others admired Amarok even more than they did Delbert. The deference they showed him as they readily agreed annoyed Jasper. They were so obvious in their attempts to please Evelyn’s lover. But Jasper could do nothing except play along and hope his wound wouldn’t bleed through his uniform right then and there.

  “May I?” Amarok gestured at a chair, which he pulled over from a neighboring table, since there wasn’t an open seat at theirs.

  “Of course,” Delbert said, and they all shifted to make room.

  Jasper had been hoping the ordeal the sergeant must’ve endured last night—once he found his tires slashed and the only decent shelter in the area going up in flames—had taken more of a toll on him. The trooper did look tired and drawn. But he wasn’t cowed. His flinty expression spoke of raw determination—the determination he felt to keep the community, and especially the woman he loved, safe.

  Jasper was tempted to check his wound, but he was afraid that would only draw attention to his shoulder. To avoid the possibility of anyone noticing if he was bleeding through his bandage, he shifted that side of his body away from the table.

  Rather than flip his chair around, Amarok sat on it backwards. “Some of you might’ve heard about the two bodies that were discovered earlier today”—he glanced at the clock on the wall, which said it was nearly two thirty, and amended his statement—“or, rather, yesterday.”

  To Jasper’s surprise, only Sean had caught the news. The others expressed shock at the revelation and began asking questions all at once.

  Amarok silenced them by lifting a hand so he could speak. “A snowmobiler came across their remains in a wilderness area on the northwest side of Anchorage. I might not have immediately assumed there was a connection between the woman I’ve been searching for and this grisly discovery, but there was something about one of the bodies that led me to believe it might have some bearing on my case, and that link has now been verified.”

  Jasper clenched his jaw. He’d known this might happen, but the more pieces of the puzzle Amarok held, the more precarious his own position became.

  “So the Yerbowitz woman is dead?” Sean’s face twisted into an empathetic grimace. “Does her brother know?”

  “He does,” Amarok confirmed. “He’s the one who made the identification. He and his friends drove to Anchorage as soon as we learned.”

  “Will he be coming back here?”

  “I can’t imagine he will. There’s no reason for him to return to Hilltop. He’ll make the appropriate arrangements for bringing his sister home, once the body’s been released. Then he’ll head back to his family in Louisiana.”

  Skip’s chair scraped the f
loor as he shifted. “How was she killed?”

  “The autopsy won’t take place until tomorrow, but the detective who’s been assigned the case told me there was no obvious sign of trauma—no stab wound, gunshot wound or injuries to the head or body.”

  When Skip cringed as Sean had, Jasper couldn’t help studying his expression and body language. He seemed to care about the Yerbowitzes, and yet he didn’t even know them. That was something Jasper had never been able to understand.

  “So was she strangled?” Skip asked.

  Amarok nodded. “That’d be my guess, but we’ll wait and see what the coroner says.”

  Sean slid the cards he’d been dealt to one side. “And the other woman?”

  “We don’t know exactly what killed her, either. The autopsy should determine that.”

  Jasper had tortured the other woman extensively before her death, and that would be obvious. Amarok had to know it by now, but he didn’t let on. Jasper could only guess he was playing the usual cop game of keeping certain information to himself so that anyone who appeared to know too much might give himself away.

  “Who was the other woman?” Jasper asked this so he’d appear to show the same alarm and concern as the others.

  “We don’t have any information on her yet,” Amarok told him. “Anchorage PD is still working on the identification.”

  Easy leaned forward. “So now we’re looking at two homicides?”

  He sounded shocked, but if Jasper had his way there’d be a lot more.

  “Yes, there’s little doubt about that,” Amarok said.

  Easy cracked his knuckles. “That changes things, doesn’t it? Makes it much less likely one was killed by accident or in a fit of rage?”

  “That’s true,” Amarok agreed.

  Sean sat up taller. “You’re not suggesting we have a serial killer on the loose!”

  “It’s possible. From what I can tell so far, these women weren’t killed at the same time, which means there was a cooling-off period in between. And they weren’t related to each other, weren’t friends or even acquaintances. They seem to be totally random victims.”