Alaskan Wolf

by Linda O. Johnston

  He had to get away, stay far away, from the woman who wrote about animals. Not just sleep in a different building from her.

  He also thought about Shaun. His murder. The blood.

  The sights, the sounds, the smells around the sled hands’ house.

  How he’d failed to pick up clues as to the identity of the murderer. And how the killer had obscured potentially useful evidence, like a scent.

  If Patrick hadn’t been sure the cops would still be around, he’d have sneaked back under the cover of darkness early this morning. He’d still head there a little later, after checking out of the B and B. Maybe that wasn’t the best decision. Normal people would stay in a nice, comfy inn, out of the way of a murder investigation.

  He wasn’t normal people.

  He had to look like one, though, so his excuse would be that he needed to be at the ranch for the dogs’ sake, which was true.

  But when he was alone, near enough to accomplish his real goal, he would extract the most important contents of his backpack: the elixir and the light that triggered its usefulness.

  As a wolf, he would be able to use enhanced senses to find any trace the murderer had left—and there was bound to be something, at least tonight, when the kill was so fresh.

  Because he could not be there alone tonight, the best Patrick could hope for was that the crime scene guys found everything there was to find and handled it perfectly.

  Unlikely.

  So it would be better from his perspective if they found nothing at all.

  At least they might not still be hanging out there collecting evidence tomorrow night. If so, that would give Patrick his opportunity to conduct his own hunt for clues pointing to Shaun’s murderer.

  While he shifted into his wolf form.

  Chapter 5

  The moment she opened her eyes that morning, Mariah was wide awake. She immediately headed for the shower in the small bathroom attached to her room.

  Her first thoughts were of Patrick Worley, and seeing him in the business center the night before. He had been sweet, walking her to her room, despite his own grieving, when she’d felt so freaked out about the murder of his friend.

  Poor Shaun. She’d barely met him, but he seemed nice enough. Why would anyone have killed him—and as brutally as Patrick had hesitated to describe? And in this small town, where residents probably knew everyone else who lived here. Her curiosity was on high alert. Shaun had worked at the same dogsled ranch as Patrick. Did that have anything to do with why he died?

  Unlikely, but she would consider writing a separate article on the ranch, its dogs and its mushers—and use it as an excuse to look into Shaun’s murder, as long as her new research didn’t interfere with her nature article. Her boss, who owned more than one publication, would love that.

  But poor Patrick, too. Shaun’s death had clearly been hard on him. She would have to see if there was anything she could do to help him through this difficult situation…within reason.

  For her own sake, though, she should probably stay away from him.

  She’d dreamed about him. She couldn’t quite remember her nighttime fantasy, but judging by the sensitivity of her body this morning, it had been steamy. Or maybe that was actually a daylight reaction, resulting from her ongoing attraction to him.

  Which was absurd. Yes, he was one hot guy. Maybe she should satisfy her curiosity, indulge in a one-night stand. That might even help him get his mind off his friend’s death, too, for a little while. Do a good deed both for herself and for him.

  But what if, instead of feeling satisfied, she only wanted more?

  After showering, she fixed her hair, put on a minimal amount of makeup, and dressed nicely but casually. She had a meeting later with the science teacher at the town’s high school, for a local perspective on wildlife.

  When she was ready to go, she glanced at the clock on the bedside table. Eight-thirty, the time she’d told Patrick she’d be at breakfast.

  After locking her door, she hurried downstairs.

  The inn’s breakfast area was crowded but not full. The room sounded alive with low conversation and the clinking of plates. About a dozen people were seated at small wooden tables, alone and in groups of two and three.

  Patrick wasn’t there.

  Mariah went to get her food—wheat toast with strawberry jam, a hard-boiled egg, orange juice and coffee. Then she had to decide where to sit. With others…or alone at a table for two?

  Before she’d decided, she saw Patrick fill the doorway, his backpack again over his shoulder. He wore his heavy jacket, unzipped to reveal a gold sweater beneath.

  He joined her near the toaster. “Morning,” he said. “I thought I’d find you here. I’m checking out now and not staying for breakfast.”

  “Oh?” She put her food down on the counter, feeling ridiculously hurt, as if he’d stood her up for a date.

  “I want to get back to the dogs, Duke and all of them. I’m sure they’re upset. Though they’re unlikely to understand that Shaun’s dead, there was a lot of activity around them last night. And Toby and Wes were probably kept too busy to pay much attention to them.”

  “I understand.” And she did. She might have the sense that Patrick chose not to relate to people at times, but she could definitely identify with people who cared for animals.

  Her mind immediately returned to that wolf on the glacier, and she thrust the thought away. Why go there now?

  “If I can do anything to help them, or the Daweses,” she said, “please let me know. And I still hope you’ll take me back out on the glaciers—maybe tomorrow, if the ranch is up and running again.” Then she could worry about that wolf.

  His eyes bored into hers. “I told you I’d let Toby know you wanted someone to take you out again.”

  She was not intimidated. “And I told you I’d like it to be you.” She crossed her arms, waiting for the next salvo.

  It came as a broad, sexy grin that nearly made her knees buckle. “We’ll see,” he said, then left the room.

  Driving through wind-whipped snow flurries, Patrick called Wes on his way back to the dogsled ranch. “Cops gone?” he asked. “Are we working today?”

  “Yes and yes,” was the reply. “We’re still under orders to cooperate with the investigators and keep everyone out of Shaun’s room, but otherwise we’re supposedly back to normal. Except for the fact that we’re missing a musher—and we’re all still suspects.”

  “Got it. The dogs handling it okay?”

  “I guess. You can figure it out…when you’re back.”

  There was a hint of inquiry in the last, so Patrick responded, “On my way.”

  “Oh, and Patrick?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I know Shaun was your friend,” Wes said. “I didn’t know him well, but he seemed like a good guy. We’ll miss him around here.”

  “Yeah.”

  Patrick arrived at the ranch ten minutes later, parked in the area designated for staff and headed to the large building where the dogs were housed when not out romping or working.

  Duke came over to him, whined and waited for Patrick to kneel and stroke him. Duke and he had been partners for a while now. The dog had been acquired by Alpha Force as a pup and designated as Patrick’s cover over a year ago—because he was a combination shepherd-wolfhound that looked a lot like Patrick’s shifted form.

  “Good boy,” Patrick said, then, more softly into the dog’s ear, “Looks like we’re on our own.”

  But when his cell phone rang only a minute later, that situation changed.

  “Can you talk now?” Major Drew Connell asked.

  Standing, Patrick said, “Just me and the dogs at the moment.”

  “Good. Here’s the deal. I’ve already spoken with Wes Dawes, since you and I discussed it.”

  When Drew was done talking, Patrick gave Duke a pat and headed out the door toward the main house. As he walked inside the entry, he heard someone speaking in the kitchen. It was Wes, who hung
up his cell phone as Patrick walked into the room.

  “Sounds like you and me have some talking to do,” Wes said, grinning.

  “Got some time now?”

  They sat at the kitchen table, Patrick with a glass of orange juice and Wes with coffee.

  Wes looked like a junior version of his dad, muscular, not too tall, with a round face and receding hairline. His gray sweater was threadbare around the elbows and sleeves. His expression was sober. “Give me a heads-up on what you’ll expect from me.”

  “We can’t officially recruit you into Alpha Force,” Patrick said. “Because you’re not in the military any longer. But since you had a high clearance, I can rely on you for backup. Did Major Connell explain our mission?”

  Even if he had, Patrick was certain that Drew would not have revealed the true nature of Alpha Force. Not only was Wes nonmilitary, he had also not been ruled out as a suspect in Shaun’s murder.

  But Patrick might need backup as he investigated the disappearing glaciers, and that was what, in generalities, he revealed to Wes.

  “That was one reason for our partying so much at Fiske’s,” Patrick confirmed to Wes. “To talk to the scientists hanging out there in a relaxed setting, where they won’t know how interested we are in their answers.”

  “Got it. What else?”

  “We’ll wing it. Glad you’re on board.”

  Wes might be a real asset, since he knew people around here. Some of what Patrick needed to accomplish involved learning people’s observations about the glaciers.

  Tonight, though, when Patrick visited Great Glaciers National Park in wolf form, he would be on his own.

  Mariah had time to kill before meeting with the local science teacher. She knew exactly where she wanted to go: the closest place that had Wi-Fi. The internet connection in the business center at her little B and B had worked out okay last night, but it was slow.

  Besides, she wanted to use her own laptop for ease of storing information she found during her research.

  Most of all, she wanted to be sure no one could see, in some menu of last topics researched, exactly what she was looking for.

  She would walk to the Tagoga Library. It wasn’t far from Inez’s B and B. And if she made a call on the way, her conversation wouldn’t be overheard.

  She bundled up and started outside. Walking wasn’t the safest thing to do on slick sidewalks during heavy snow flurries, but she used her cell to phone her boss, the editor of Alaskan Nature Magazine, among other publications. “Hi, Harold.” She snugged the receiver against her ear beneath her knit cap.

  Harold Hanrahan wasn’t much older than Mariah’s age of thirty-one. He had taken over his family’s publishing company when his father, its founder, had had enough of Alaska’s winters and moved to Florida. Harold had already been an editor, and he was also an excellent businessman. In addition to Alaskan Nature, he now owned a weekly publication distributed in several small towns—filled with lots of advertising—and a monthly rag that focused on gossip and celebrity sensationalism.

  Neither was to Mariah’s taste, but she occasionally wrote articles for them, on Harold’s request. After all, she’d written similar swill in her past. And under Harold’s tenure, subscriptions to Alaskan Nature had tripled. Its distribution outlets all over the country now included not only standard places like newsstands but also unusual ones like pet stores, animal rescue organizations and even stores that sold sporting goods and outdoor gear.

  “So tell me more about that murder,” he said with no preamble.

  “I doubt it has anything to do with the article I’m researching,” she retorted wryly, but she nevertheless told him all she knew—which wasn’t much. “But that’s one reason I’m calling,” she said. “I intend to look a little more closely into what’s going on around here. If I see anything we can use for a cover story relating not only to wildlife, but anything touching on natural occurrences around here, I’ll follow up.”

  “Unnatural occurrences, too,” he said gruffly. “Write about anything juicy you find out about the killing, and I’ll include your article in the Advertiser or the Journal, whichever works best.”

  It was the response she had anticipated, she reflected as she hung up and carefully stuck her phone into her purse with one hand. Her other hand held her laptop’s case, and both were covered in bulky, warm gloves.

  And though she really didn’t want to get into the details of Shaun’s death, she could now justify spending time researching it to see where it led.

  More info about Patrick Worley? Maybe. They’d clearly been friends.

  She reached the Tagoga Library. Fortunately, despite the smallness of the town and compactness of its library, it was advanced enough to make Wi-Fi available to its patrons.

  Nearly filled bookshelves lined the room, surrounding about a dozen small tables. The place wasn’t crowded, and after waving a greeting to the librarian on duty, she chose a table as far from the door as possible to set up her computer.

  After removing her gloves and jacket, and rubbing her hands together to warm them in the comfortable heat of the library, Mariah sat down and started to work.

  First, she did a Google search on Shaun Bethune, to see if she could learn anything more about him than she’d found on the inn’s computer last night—like what he’d done before working at the Great Glaciers Dogsled Ranch. She’d gotten the impression he hadn’t been there much longer than Patrick, an apparent newcomer.

  She found nothing on anyone she thought could be this Shaun. Few people with his name were listed, and the ages, and circumstances of their listings didn’t sound like the man who had just died.

  An apparent dead end—and she didn’t intend the pun. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t learn anything about him. Her research would have to be done here in Tagoga, subtly. And without interfering with her researching the article she really wanted to write.

  She had one more person to research before looking for information about local schools, to prepare for her interview later.

  She looked up Patrick Worley. She had an excuse to check Shaun on Google: a writer’s investigative curiosity. But her reason to look up Patrick on the internet was simply that she was interested.

  She found quite a few people with his name, including businessmen and scientists, medical doctors and educators—but none that sounded like him.

  Until she came to a Patrick Worley who was the survivor of two deceased Maryland citizens, including a veterinarian. If this was him, he had come by his love of dogs naturally.

  Only…how odd! The stuff she found on various websites—including pages devoted to the town of Mary Glen, where the vet’s practice had been—was full of allusions to local legends. Werewolves, of all things!

  Of course that had been discredited. There had been some odd goings-on in the town, including the murder of that Patrick Worley’s dad and mother, too. But the killer had been found.

  Nothing for Mariah to use, most certainly not in her article on local wildlife in the Tagoga, Alaska, area. Or even a story on the death of Shaun Bethune.

  But this could certainly explain why Patrick was so closemouthed about his background. Who would want to admit to having had his world shaken up by a bunch of woo-woo, credulous fruitcakes?

  And Patrick—there were a couple of mentions of the surviving son, and the fact he had enlisted in the military but was dishonorably discharged.

  Her Patrick?

  There was no explanation of the circumstances. And she couldn’t even be certain that it was the right Patrick Worley.

  Even if it was, that didn’t matter.

  Mariah had an article on local wildlife to research and write. And she would keep that focus at the forefront of her mind.

  Patrick was again—still—on Mariah’s mind a few hours later after her appointment with John Amory, the Tagoga High School science teacher who taught biology and advanced biology classes.

  She needed Patrick, or at least his dogsled team.
She was completely jazzed about getting back onto the glaciers as quickly as possible.

  That was why she’d decided to go to Fiske’s this evening for dinner, in the hope of running into Patrick there. But after the death of his friend, was he likely to be eating out in such a noisy, jovial place?

  She didn’t know, but, snugging her jacket around her, she set out walking briskly from Inez’s, in the dark after sunset, toward the restaurant/bar.

  In her mind, she rehashed her interview with the science teacher. John Amory had been a gold mine of information, and Mariah had taken copious notes on his ruminations about all kinds of Alaskan wildlife he had seen on the glaciers and elsewhere around here during the past ten years. His favorite part of each school year, he’d told her, was to take students on field trips onto the glaciers, see what kind of animals were there during which season, and take pictures.

  He had even made copies of a lot of pictures for her and gave her a release so she could publish them.

  And now, she was all but drooling to go back to Great Glaciers National Park and take more photos of her own. Use identifiable landmarks in John’s pictures and shoot some in the same locations. Maybe she could even capture some of the same kinds of animals. But she suspected, because of the frightening changes to the area of the glaciers, she was more likely to find at least some of those areas barren of life.

  Maybe, though, she would see that wolf again.

  She laughed a little at herself. Why was she getting so obsessed about that animal?

  Pushing open the door to Fiske’s, she heard the roar of conversations inside. When she gazed around, she didn’t see Patrick or anyone else from the dogsled ranch.

  Darn. Well, she wasn’t really surprised. And when she backed outside again to call, just in case, she only got the Great Glaciers Dogsled Ranch answering machine, the recorded voice telling her to leave a message.

  Instead, she decided to head to the ranch and talk to someone—hopefully Patrick, but one of the Daweses would do—once she finished dinner.

  And then, shivering from the cold, she went back inside.