The Stranger (22 page)

My stomach squeezed. “Where are you going?”

“I’ve got a dinner meeting in Fairbanks.”

“Oh?” I slumped. Did I think that his world would stop spinning just because we’d slept together?

“It’s in and out on the Learjet. I’ll be back tonight.” He gathered me against his chest. “Truce?”

“Fine.” I put my arms around him and planted a little kiss on his mouth. “Truce.”

“Let’s go downstairs then.”

“Downstairs?” I eyed him suspiciously. “Why?”

He brushed his lips against my knuckles. “I need to make peace with you before I go.”

“In the garage?”

“What, have you forgotten?” He grinned. “That’s where the couch is.”

Chapter Seventeen

My meeting in Fairbanks turned out to be productive but not necessarily helpful. It also left me in a shitty situation. Perhaps I should’ve shared my findings with Summer, but then again, I’d made an agreement in exchange for information and I always kept my word. Priority number one was Summer’s safety. The rest was peripheral and incidental and we’d have to hash it out later, when she was no longer in danger.

Summer was asleep by the time I got back, which was probably a good thing. I’d cradled her in my arms all night, feeling goddamn lucky to have her safe, hale and whole in my bed. Still, every time I thought about what had happened at Star Lake, the rage barreled through my veins. Worry and sleep didn’t go too well together, so morning found me at my desk, working, the best way I knew how to blow off steam, other than making love with Summer, who needed her rest. Yeah, I was definitively operating at a higher, nobler level these days.

I spent the next two days negotiating with the governor, preparing for the upcoming board meeting, and doing some more internal sleuthing on Alex. I made some progress. This morning, I was on my third cup of coffee, chewing on my pen and studying the numbers on my laptop when my online coms beeped. I accepted the call and Spider’s face appeared on my screen.

“Morning, dude,” he said in a flash of fangs. “Hey, you never told me. How was Fairbanks?”

“Interesting,” I said.

“I bet,” Spider said. “Are you gonna share?”

“Negative.”

“Damn, dude, I do all the ground work and you leave out the juicy parts?”

“I’m on it, okay? That’s all I’m going to say. Status report?”

“Oh, man, do I have some goodies for you today.” Had he been a fox, I would’ve gone straight to check on the chicken coop.

“Anything new on the Peterson investigation?”

“Still tracing his whereabouts seventeen years ago,” Spider said. “Working on the insurance angle and keeping track of everyone under surveillance.”

“What about Sergio De Havilland?”

“He’s still under surveillance as well,” Spider said. “But I thought you’d eliminated him from the equation, on account of dudette’s early memories.”

Memories, dreams, I wasn’t sure, but it made no difference. “I haven’t eliminated anyone, especially not him. He did something wrong to Summer. She managed to eject him completely out of her life. He needs money. Those reasons are motive enough. Keep working his angle.”

“Will do.” Spider smirked. “Can I tell you the good stuff now?”

“Go.”

“First to the Star Lake mess,” Spider said. “The lab reports are in on Anya Golov’s pickled fish. The substance that killed those fish is a very efficient designer poison, active only for a span of a few hours. There are only two laboratories in the world that produce it. One of them delivered an order to the E&E lumber mill on Star Lake. The fool who signed for that order is one of the two men in Anya’s pictures, the shift supervisor.”

I tapped my pen on the desk. “What’s his connection to Alex?”

“He’s been employee of the month for seven months in a row,” Spider said. “You should see the bonuses he’s getting. Apparently, Alex delivers the award personally each month.”

“We’ll need a full confession for the board meeting and the Feds. What else?”

“Big news.” Spider’s lips and cheeks vibrated with a pretty good drum roll imitation as he beat an imaginary pair of crash cymbals in the air. “I found them. You were right. Alex’s accounts are in Luxembourg. Under an assumed name, mind you, but he’s got them. And boy are they hefty.”

“Are you sure they’re his?”

“Positive.” Spider held a finger over the keyboard. “I’m sending you the trail of accounts...now.”

I clicked the files open and took a quick look. Jackpot. The son of a bitch was mine.

“Spider, you are top-of-the-line shit-hot stuff,” I said. “Alex’s brothers and sisters are going to have a cow when they learn that their big brother has been dipping into their piggy bank. You’re worth every penny.”

“We’ve got the accounts, but we haven’t actually caught him in the honeypot yet.”

“The hell we haven’t.”

Spider gawked. “Are you holding out on me?”

“I’ve been doing my own hunting over here.”

“Damn,” Spider said, shaking his head. “I forgot how much you like to hunt.”

“At the end of the day it’s all simple math,” I said. “Want me to give you
the
number?”

“You’re a brainy son of a bitch,” Spider said. “Shoot.”

“Sixty-three mil, over the last two years, give or take a little.”

Spider stared. “How the hell did you do that?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“That’s about the balance in those accounts I found,” Spider said. “Remind me never to step on the wrong side of your line. How come the auditors didn’t catch it?”

“The mill’s books are cooked,” I said. “Alex had a good racket going, fake vendors, dummy companies, and kickbacks funneled through the lumber division. The fucker set up shop the year I went to Afghanistan.”

“I wanna be a fly on the wall at the board meeting.”

“I can’t imagine you’re not.”

“Dude, you’re hurting my feelings.” Spider clutched his chest. “Do you think I’m a freaking spy?”

“The best there is,” I said. “It’s why I hired you. Thanks, Spider. Fantastic work.”

I clicked off and returned to work right away, updating my board meeting notes on pen and paper, as I usually did. Some things were too sensitive to put on a device and I trusted my house’s cutting edge security system. I’d just finished when Summer burst through the door.

“It’s Tammy.” She stood across from my desk, face flushed, eyes sparkling like glaciers. “I found her!”

“You found her?” How could it be? “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure, Seth. She’s at Denali National Park!”

My gut activated a burst of acid reflux. “That doesn’t sound right.”

“Of course it does,” she said. “Anybody trekking all the way to Alaska and skipping Denali is brain-dead.”

“If you say so.” I had to think on my feet. “But how do you know that they’re there?”

“I just talked to a ranger at Denali,” she said. “Tammy’s name is on a list for a backcountry permit, along with Nikolai’s.”

Damn. It was plausible, if not on my timeline.

“Denali is a huge place,” I said cautiously. “It’s over six million acres, larger than Massachusetts. It will be impossible to find them in the backcountry.”

“That’s what’s so great,” she said. “The permit specified a destination. They were heading to a place called—hang on, let me see—” She checked her notes. “Kantishna?”

“I know Kantishna,” I said, considering my options. “It’s a pretty isolated outpost, especially at this time of the year. It doesn’t sound right. Besides, no Alaskan in his right mind would take a tropical girl without hiking experience bushwhacking in October.”

Summer’s face crumpled. “Why aren’t you excited for me? I found my sister!”

What to do? I was torn in opposite directions.

“Come here,” I finally said, patting my lap. “I don’t mean to burst your bubble, but a hiking trip to Denali at this time of the year is just...unlikely.”

“But, Seth.” She eased down on my lap and put her arms around my neck. “I’ve got to go. I looked into it. The air taxi can pick me up right here. The pilot said...”

Shit. “You talked to an air taxi pilot?”

“He said he could fly me there and back today.”

“The weather can be tricky around the Alaskan Range in October.”

“He assured me that the weather is perfect for flying over the Range today,” she said. “I’ve got to go now.”

Damn the cocky ass bush pilot.

“Baby...” I was the most wretched jerk on the planet and I knew it. “You can’t go. I won’t let you.”

Her body tensed on my lap. Her eyes sparked with fury. If all of that wasn’t ominous enough, her chin stuck out and her hair flickered with an imperious toss of her head.

Uh-oh.

“You can’t go with just any rent-a-pilot,” I said, “and why would you need to pay for a rookie who drives an air scooter when you’ve got your own personal expert who knows those mountains better than anyone else?”

She stared at me, blinking in surprise. “You want to fly me to Denali?”

What option did I have? “Sure.”

Her fury was instantly appeased.

“It’s very sweet of you.” She kissed me, a tickle of soft lips that resonated deep in my groin. “But you’re so busy finalizing that contract with the governor and you’ve got to prep for your big board meeting.”

“Contract is nearly finalized.” I tapped the notes on my desk. “Prep’s done.”

“Really?” She gave me the narrow-eyed look that said she didn’t believe me. “What about the Alex thing?”

“Now, see, that’s a little more complicated, because although we’ve made tremendous progress, Alex is a sneaky bastard.”

Her lips compressed with worry. “Do you think he’s setting up a trap?”

“I know he is. I just need to figure out when and how.”

“Then you’re better off staying here and working on that while I go find Tammy.”

“That’s a negative,” I said, “as in you’re not going out there without me. In any case, I need a break. Fresh eyes do the job best.”

“Really?” She examined me closely. “Are you sure?”

“Really.” I tucked the notes in the drawer, then reached around her and, with one hand, punched on my keyboard to pull up the latest weather report. It wasn’t half bad. “I wouldn’t want people to say you were brain-dead.”

“Me?” she said. “Brain-dead?”

“Only the brain-dead come to Alaska and skip Denali.”

She grinned. “I do recall saying that.”

I planted a quick kiss on her lips. “Shall we fix the oversight?”

“Only if you really have the time for it.”

“Forget this shit.” I threw my pen over my shoulder. “Let’s go flying, baby.”

* * *

As I expected, we didn’t find Tammy and Nikolai in Denali. I was good with that, in more ways than one. The flight wasn’t a waste of time. I loved having Summer all to myself and I seized the chance to show her Alaska’s wonders. Even though she was disappointed that we didn’t find her sister, she squealed when she spotted the Dall sheep on Stony Dome and the herds of caribou crossing the Toklat River. And her face when she spied Mount Denali towering over the Range? Priceless.

Our flight path back took us on a south by southeast course over Talkeetna, Highway Three, Denali National Park, and the Alaskan Range. The mountain’s high altitude and deep canyons complicated the flying in these parts. The weather was fickle and the wind was known to shift without patterns.

Fortunately, I knew the Range like the back of my hand. I’d trained in this theater exhaustively. To this day, my reserve squadron trained and assisted with Denali’s air rescue team several times a year, which was also why we’d been so goddamn effective in the high mountains of Afghanistan.

As I mounted the spine of the Range, I checked the radar for west to east traffic and clicked on the radio. “Mountain Traffic, this is Firehawk, Alpha-niner-niner-Victor-Romeo, Great Gorge, 8000 feet, Gateway.”

“Copy that, Firehawk, niner-Victor-Romeo, this is Mountain Traffic South. Long time no see. Welcome home, Eagle.”

“Thanks, Pete,” I said, recognizing the voice. “Glad to be back.”

“Who was that?” Summer asked.

“One of my old flying buddies.”

“Why did he call you eagle?”

“Eagle was my call name with the National Guard.”

Her eyebrows quirked. “Was?”

Was, is, I wasn’t sure, so I shrugged.

“When was the last time you flew up here?” she asked.

“It’s been a while.”

“Have you flown a Pave Hawk since you came back from Afghanistan?”

I flashed her an irritated glance.

“Oh, come on.”

She wasn’t going to let up.

“If you have to know,” I said, “unofficially, yes, I have.”

“Unofficially?” She thought about that. “Oh, I get it. Somehow, you’ve been flying Pave Hawks with people from your squadron. Am I right?”

“I can’t confirm or deny that,” I said. “People can get in serious trouble for doing shit like that. I’ve been up several times and I did fine, if that’s what you’re ruminating.”

“Good going, Erickson. I’m impressed. So if all systems are a go, why aren’t you back on active reserves?”

Excellent question. “I’ve been busy.”

“Ha.” She flashed me another glance. “Try again.”

“I don’t have the time.”

“Yeah, no,” she said. “I don’t buy it.”

I glanced at her. “What’s it to you?”

“Good question.” Her gaze lingered on me for a second too long. “When I think about you on active duty, my stomach feels sick with worry.”

“Because you think I’m going to crash again?”

“You didn’t crash, Seth. Your helicopter was hit by an RPG. I doubt there’s a lot of those zipping through the air in Alaska. But I know there are lots of risks. Honestly? The whole active reserve stuff scares the bejesus out of me.”

“Then why the hell are you riding my tail so hard about going back?”

“Because you love it,” she said. “And you miss flying those Pave Hawks. You miss your friends at the squadron, too. You’re happy when you’re up here. You’re busy, but you could make time if you wanted to. Something else is holding you back.”

“Something like what, Miss Know It All?”

“I think you’re punishing yourself.”

“What?” Where the fuck had that come from?

“You’re punishing yourself for the loss of your friends’ lives.”

Blindsided. Her words slammed into me like a punch to the gut. I went into a tailspin. I almost doubled over the stick.
Focus
,
Erickson
. I wasn’t going to lose it at this altitude. I glanced over at Summer. The compassion etched on her face left me reeling. Jesus fucking Christ. Was she right? Had I grounded myself to atone for my friends’ deaths?

“Enough punishment.” She stared at me with those relentless eyes. “You’ve served your sentence. It’s time to let yourself out of prison.”

She was right. Any idiot could see that. How the hell had she figured out what I hadn’t been able to see for myself? I was holding back, out of guilt, grief, and despair. I couldn’t make sense of what had happened. Why the hell was I alive? Did I have a right to happiness when my friends were gone?