More pressing was her physical being—her life. Every creak of the boat, every sound, had her on edge. She couldn’t possibly close her eyes, much less sleep.
Colin was down the hall in his room, but he might as well be back in Mountain Cove for all the good his presence would do if she were attacked. She still ached from the previous attempts on her life.
Oh, God, what was I thinking to do this? Is Buck the man who attacked me or not? She couldn’t decide. Her imagination was working overtime.
Except. An image projected across her mind.
The way Buck had stood there in the hallway, his wide stance. Hadn’t she seen that stance before—above the water on the ledge?
Jewel climbed from bed. Standing, expanding her lungs would help her catch her breath. But after several tries she realized she was hyperventilating. Breathing too hard and fast and getting too much oxygen. She’d never experienced this before. Her life had never been pushed so close to the edge. Though she didn’t have a paper bag to breathe into, she could use her hands. She cupped her palms over her mouth to balance out the oxygen with carbon dioxide.
A sound from the hall drew her attention.
She stood still, listening.
Footfalls?
Her doorknob twisted quietly.
Though her door was locked, the fact someone wanted in still terrified her.
Lord, help me!
Jewel ran to the table next to the bed and grabbed the gun she’d brought on board with her bag. She wrapped her hand around the cool plastic of her 9-millimeter pistol, hoping it would reassure her. But any reassurance was lost with the thought that her attacker stood on the other side of the door.
Trying to get into her room.
But she must face him head-on this time. She hurried to the door that had no peephole. “Who’s there?”
She might as well face him and get it over with.
“It’s me.” Colin’s voice was soft.
What is he doing here? She cracked the door. “You scared me to death.”
“You look like you’re still alive to me.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m sorry to scare you. I was checking your door to make sure it was locked. Now get some sleep.”
She swung the door a little wider and stuck out her head to look in the hallway. “I’m having some trouble with that.”
“That’s understandable after what you’ve been through. But I told you I was here to protect you, so that’s what I’m doing. It’s no different than me staying at your B and B, if you want to think of it that way.” He cracked a half grin, then his gaze dropped. “I’m glad it’s not your policy to shoot first and ask questions later. I’m glad, too, that you brought your own protection.”
She lifted the Glock, trusting the feel of it in her hands. “Don’t worry. I know how to use it. I can take care of myself.” But she wasn’t feeling secure. Wasn’t feeling it at all. The thought of facing off with another human being and shooting him wasn’t appealing in the least, even if it meant putting an end to her attacks.
Jewel opened her door wider. “Come in, so we don’t wake the others.”
He hesitated, something raw anchored in those starkly blue eyes, then shook his head. He wasn’t coming into her room. He either didn’t trust himself or he didn’t trust her.
Her heart did a somersault. He was rugged and handsome and a protector all wrapped up in one way-too-appealing package. And he’d assigned himself as her personal bodyguard. Something inside told her he wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t much more than police business. If it wasn’t personal to him.
“So what? Are you planning to stand guard outside my room all night, then?”
“If that’s what it takes.”
The disquiet in his eyes tugged at her heart. She reached out and pressed her hand against his cheek, feeling the stubble there. A current surged up her arm. Mistake. It had been a mistake to reach out, but she couldn’t seem to pull her hand back. She was enjoying that slow hum in her belly entirely too much.
“I don’t know how you can watch over me 24/7,” she said. The hitch in her voice told more than she wanted to reveal. “You have to rest, too.”
He stepped back, forcing Jewel to drop her hand. His move had been intentional, and she was grateful. What had she been thinking? She couldn’t think at all when next to him anymore.
“No one camped outside my room at the B and B, and I’m safer here than I was there.”
“That why you brought the gun? You believe you’re safe now?” It was rhetorical. He was making a point. “Good night, Jewel.”
“Good night.” She closed the door and pressed her back against it.
* * *
He hadn’t expected Jewel to answer, because he’d seen the truth in her eyes and in her actions. They were both dancing around that truth, because Jewel was unwilling to tell him. But now he had confirmation from her that he’d been right to come. He’d been right to listen to his gut if even Jewel thought she wasn’t safe on this yacht with her sister and brother-in-law.
And he knew to be even more vigilant. He kept his door open. Sat in a chair and watched the hallway, his eyes on Jewel’s door.
Come on, Buck, make a move. Make a move while I’m here so I can catch you and put you away. So I can stop the attack and prevent more. Make a move so we can all get back to our lives. So I can get back to thinking about something besides Jewel Caraway.
But nothing happened during the night. Buck made no move to attack Jewel.
Colin joined the group for breakfast and downed enough coffee to make an elephant jumpy. He thought Buck had wanted to fish for halibut, but the yacht cruised toward a new destination that only Buck knew—a surprise, he’d said.
Doubts suffused Colin’s thoughts. If he was the attacker, the killer, then Buck had successfully stayed two steps ahead of Colin all this time. Jewel was right. Colin couldn’t maintain this pace. All he could do was bide his time for Buck to make a mistake or for something else to come through. Something like his memory finally clicking into gear and telling Colin why the other man seemed so familiar. He knew the man from somewhere, and suddenly he’d showed up here and Jewel was attacked, her life threatened. Colin didn’t believe in coincidence.
Jewel’s attacker had a partner, a woman. As Colin watched Meral chat with Jewel, he couldn’t reconcile that fact with what he saw and knew of Jewel’s sister. Meral couldn’t be the woman who had rammed Jim Humphrey’s monster Suburban into Jewel’s Durango. So who could the accomplice be?
Stella refilled his coffee mug, poured more orange juice for Meral and Jewel. The cool breeze picked up and the tablecloth fluttered. Jewel’s hair whipped across her face. She tugged it back behind her ear, looking as though she hadn’t slept better than Colin, but she kept up a good front for Meral’s sake.
Captain Mike chatted with Buck at the rail, while Gary, the deckhand, manned the helm. Colin had seen Captain Mike come and go from Mountain Cove with his chartered cruises, and the certified Coast Guard Master and his crew were not suspects in Colin’s mind.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. They must have been passing through limited cell-tower service. He tugged it out to see he had three texts. Two from David, who was just checking on them. The other from his friend and forensic artist, letting Colin know that he would start working on the sketch of Buck. The text had been sent last night.
Colin had asked him to take off fifteen or so years and remove the beard and wrinkles and extra weight, since most people thickened even in the face as they aged. He hadn’t met the man while in Alaska, he didn’t think, which meant he had to have run into him while in Texas. Taking those extra years off the sketch might trigger Colin’s memory.
He jammed his cell back in his pocket, felt his gun under his jacket, though he made no attempt to hide it. Then realized the yacht ha
d stopped. The Alabaster Sky anchored in the waters just off where the Bledsoe Glacier terminus met the water.
A loud crack resounded.
Meral jumped up. “Would you look at that?”
They all rushed to the rail.
“That’s called calving,” Gary told them. Apparently he was not only a deckhand but an ecologist, and could serve as their tour guide when possible. “When ice breaks from the terminus, the end of a glacier, and falls into the water. That’s when it’s called an iceberg.”
They watched in silent awe as ice broke away and fell into the channel water.
After a few minutes, Buck put his hands on Meral’s shoulders. “We’ve got all day to explore the glacier, ice caves and waterfalls. I hope that won’t be too uncomfortable for you, Jewel.”
“No, of course not. It’s a cruise to explore Alaska. I expected as much.”
Colin gauged Jewel’s reaction to the news. She didn’t appear troubled at thoughts of viewing a waterfall so recently after her fall, but he wondered if maybe she was quaking on the inside. She didn’t look at him, avoiding making eye contact. Maybe he had his answer.
Was this all part of Buck’s plan?
To lure them out into the wilderness and then act? What kind of policeman, what kind of person, was Colin to let him do it? Except Jewel had the right to make her own decisions, and Colin had no evidence to go on. Nothing he could use to accuse Buck and separate Jewel from her sister. All he could do was try to protect her, watch and wait.
He joined Jewel, Meral and Buck in gearing up to hike on the ice, though they’d wait to don crampons, if necessary, when they met with the official tour guide at the US Forest Service’s Bledsoe Glacier Visitor Center.
Taking on his own tour guide role again, Gary explained about the region and the glacier before delivering them. Scratching his chin, he eyed them all, his gaze lingering on Jewel. “Glaciers and ice caves are part of the Alaska tour package, but you need to know up front the dangers. Glaciers are moving sheets of ice. They create the ice caves, and the very nature of that creation also makes them unstable. Translated—they’re dangerous. Stay alert and follow the safety guidelines.”
Gary prepared to take them to shore. Buck and Meral climbed down the short ladder to the skiff. Jewel positioned herself to follow Meral down.
Colin grabbed her arm, stopping her, and pulled her close. “Jewel, are you sure about this? This will be a strenuous activity. You still have stitches. Bruises. And the waterfall. Are you ready to see another one?”
She pressed her hand over his on her arm. “I’ll be fine. Really. If I get tired I can stop and rest. Worst case, I’ll whine about it and you can escort me back. But I don’t want to let Meral down if I don’t have to. I know you don’t understand.”
“How can I? You haven’t told me much.”
Jewel frowned and started down again, but Colin didn’t let go. “Did you bring your Glock?”
“Why would I? I have you to protect me.”
Colin released her to go to the boat and followed after her, his own weapon tucked within reach.
They met Preston Jenkins, the professional tour guide, at the center and geared up to hike across the glacier, wearing helmets, backpacks, crampons and carrying ice axes. Colin had lived in southeast Alaska for fifteen years, and he’d never actually hiked a glacier. His experience in this region usually involved getting in and out quickly in a helicopter when there was a need with search and rescue or recovery.
To his way of thinking, hiking a glacier was like walking on a different planet in a faraway galaxy. And he had absolutely no doubt that without Jenkins’s skills, they would never have found the ice cave—there was no path that Colin could see.
But after four hours of the most difficult hiking he’d ever experienced, he knew he wouldn’t have agreed to this if he’d realized the exertion required. Uneven steps, some places muddy and slippery, scrambling over rock and ice. Meral and Buck’s tirelessness surprised him. He was more worried about Jewel with her injuries.
They approached the edge of the glacier on the far side and climbed down to dirt and boulders and pebbles. Jenkins announced that they’d reached the entrance to the cave and allowed them to catch their breaths. The glacier ice was gray and dirty and folded over into the ground, disappearing into an opening, a swirling hole that called them. Finding the cave had been like searching for hidden treasure, and even from the entrance, Colin could see on the inside it shimmered like a gem.
Jenkins led them on, and they followed single file into a whole new world—stunning and strange with cerulean and blue-green ice that had the appearance of glass-like transparent obsidian blooming above them. Colin stood in awe as he stared up at what looked like waves that billowed and rolled—the underside of a river that had been flash frozen.
He couldn’t believe he’d lived near such beauty and had never before taken the time to see it. Rocks protruded from patches of ice where they walked. Colin stumbled but caught himself, which pulled his thoughts from the mesmerizing cave of ice and back to the dangers they faced—both from the environment and from the potential killer in their midst. Water trickled and dripped. The cave formed as the glacier melted. For the moment at least, Colin wasn’t worried about Buck’s intentions—he, too, stumbled around in the cave, head up, neck twisted, humbled by the sight if his reaction was anything like Colin’s.
“Looks like chunks are splitting up there, ready to fall down on us. With all this water dripping, I’m going to be soaking wet.” Buck hadn’t been talking to anyone in particular, then he glanced at Colin. “Kind of creepy, isn’t it?”
Colin nodded, but he wasn’t thinking about the ice. The way Buck stared at him, grinning; he had a strange feeling the guy knew as much. What was his game? What was he up to?
“How much farther?” Buck called to Jenkins.
“It’s a ways. Nothing you can’t handle. We can go back at any time.”
“What do you think, Meral?”
She glanced at Jewel, who nodded. “I’m good if you are. I’ve never seen anything like this. I’m not ready to leave yet.”
Jenkins led them deeper into the bowels of the cave. The ice swirled over and around. The group was silent, taking it all in, and Colin admitted it was just a little terrifying. Ice caves had been known to collapse without warning—they were constantly shifting and changing with the glacier, melting off, blocks of ice tumbling.
Despite being enraptured with the natural beauty of their surroundings, Colin never let Jewel out of his sight, albeit peripheral vision at moments. He remained near and stood between her and Buck at all times. Had his weapon ready to use if needed.
Jewel paused to rest on a boulder, and Colin waited with her while the others continued exploring deeper inside the cave.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
Colin was surprised at her agility, especially after her injuries. But she’d spent the past twenty years hiking the wilderness and exploring on a regular basis. He supposed it shouldn’t surprise him she would bounce back so easily.
She rubbed her leg while glancing intermittently at Jenkins, Buck and Meral, who had entered another tunnel.
Jenkins hung back. “You guys coming? We need to stay together.”
Jewel nodded. “We’ll be right there.”
He didn’t look convinced, but disappeared into the tunnel, his voice echoing with Buck’s and Meral’s.
“This trip seemed like a good idea,” she whispered. “A way for me to be safely away from Mountain Cove, but we’re not safe, Colin.”
She looked up at him, her hazel eyes looking blustery and taking on the crystal blues of the cave. He thought they’d already agreed on that last night when she’d answered the door holding a Glock.
“When I told you to get away, this wasn’t what I meant,” he said. “Jewel, I know you want to spend t
ime with Meral, but maybe we should let them continue the cruise without us. You and I will get off right here and now. We’ll go back to the visitor center and say our goodbyes.” He almost held his breath waiting for her answer, hoping she’d agree.
She hung her head. “It seems ridiculous. We’re like two couples on a romantic cruise, but you’re my bodyguard. Anyway it doesn’t matter. I can’t do this anymore. So, yes, let’s stop this charade. Me pretending I’m enjoying myself, that I’m not worried about my safety. I don’t know about you, but I got next to no sleep last night. I’m sure you didn’t either. But... Colin...let me be the one to break it to Meral, okay?”
“Okay.” Colin was interested to see how Buck would react. “How are you going to explain it to her?” He’d like to hear that answer from Jewel. He prided himself in his ability to ask the hard questions, but he hadn’t yet pushed Jewel for answers the way he should. It was long past time he did. “Why do you believe you’re in danger on this venture with your sister and her husband, with me, the police chief, as your bodyguard?”
Footfalls crunched. Jewel watched the tunnel and shook her head. The timing was no good.
Jenkins approached and gave Jewel a concerned look. “We need to get moving. You think you can make it?”
She nodded. “Of course.”
He led them down the tunnel to join Buck and Meral and then through a tight space, where they brushed against an ice wall and had to move single file. Colin looked up at the cracks in the ice, the icicles, frozen spears, hanging above. This wasn’t safe, but he could almost understand why people risked so much to come here in spite of the dangers. It was a sight one couldn’t see anywhere else.
“Meral,” Jewel whispered.
Meral slowed and let distance grow between her and Buck.
“Meral, listen, I’m not going to stay on the yacht. I thought I could do this, but I can’t.”
Buck stopped and turned. “What’s that?”
Colin tensed. He would have waited until they were back at the visitor center, had their gear in hand, and could stand on the dock and wave goodbye. He’d assumed she would wait to break the news.
Mountain Secrets Page 12
