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After living in New York the past few years, the pace of life in Firelight Ridge in the winter took some adjusting for Lila. To do anything, snow had to be cleared, vehicles had to be scraped and warmed up, and daylight had to be considered. The closer it came to Winter Solstice in December, the shorter the days got. It felt as if a blanket of night was closing in around them. Sometimes it felt to Lila like a comforting, swaddling blanket. Other times, it could feel claustrophobic.

“Headlamps are your friend,” Bear told her. He gave her a pack of three that he’d requested during Gunnar’s last trip to Costco in Fairbanks. She kept one in her coat pocket, one in her bedroom, and one on Bear’s nightstand.

That last visit from Allison had reminded her that her friendly neighborhood dead woman was an important source of information. She needed to be home for more dreams to come to her. At Bear’s, she dreamed about different things. Sex things, often. So she got into the habit of alternating between Bear’s bed and her own. Some nights he stayed at her place with her, but not every time. It hadn’t been easy, but she’d convinced him that she wasn’t in any immediate danger.

“With all this snow, no one’s going to sneak around without being spotted. And I promise to lock all doors and windows and train Goldilocks to use a baseball bat.”

“Ha ha.”

So it was a week before Lila made it out to Paulina’s place to talk to her about Nancy’s journal. Allison had said that the women in Fangtooth Gulch—as it was back then—stuck together. Maybe Paulina knew all about Nancy’s diary.

Bear wanted to come with her, but he had to train their new cook. Grant Cruz had happily accepted the job offer, committed to staying for the winter, and was working his first shift that very day.

“Besides, I need to get back on the horse,” she’d told Bear when he fretted about her driving alone in the snow. “I can’t be afraid to ever drive to Paulina’s by myself again,” she’d told him. “But I will be extra careful, I promise.”

After knocking and receiving a cheerful, “Come in, but keep the snow out!” she found Paulina, rosy-cheeked and bright-eyed, painting the sparkling landscape outside her window. Of course she gave it her own whimsical fairytale touch, with an imaginary bear cub perched on the shoulders of a snowman.

Lila presented the elderly artist with a basket of corn muffins she’d made that morning.

“Well, good morning, aren’t you a kind snow angel to drive all the way out here to make sure the old crone isn’t starving in a pile of snow.”

Laughing, Lila kissed her on the cheek. “I should have known this would be your favorite kind of weather.”

“Indeed it is. The snow makes me feel safe. It’s like a layer of insulation between me and that mean old world out there.”

“You really are a hermit at heart, aren’t you?” Lila drew up a footstool next to her easel.

“Aren’t you? We sensitive souls tend to be.” She set down her paintbrush and picked up a muffin.

“No, not at all. My friends are too important to me.”

Just as she’d hoped, Paulina took the bait. “Friends are always a boon. You’re very fortunate.”

That was what Lila wanted to talk about—Paulina’s old friends. But she’d learned by now that she needed to get Paulina to drop her shields before bombarding her with questions. “I agree, especially because Alaska can be such a man’s world.”

“It’s an independent person’s world. Man or woman. But we women relied on each other a lot,” she admitted. “There weren’t very many women out here when I first came. That was before the town grew, and more people built homes out here, and tourists started coming. It was a forgotten frontier town where people had to stick together just to survive.”

“I have it on very good authority that the women here then were very close.” She hoped she didn’t have to say that the authority was a murder victim.

“Well, that is true. We always helped each other, when we could. Especially if someone was in danger or—” She broke off abruptly. There was something here, a third rail she didn’t want to discuss.

Lila had to push. “Like when Allison Casey was killed? That kind of danger?”

Alarm flashed through the older woman’s eyes. “We shouldn’t talk about that. That’s all done with.”

Such an odd way to put it. “That must have been such a terrifying time. Where were you when it happened?”

“At home. Painting. I don’t know anything, I—” She clamped her jaw shut.

Lila set a hand on her arm, feeling it tremble. “Paulina, what are you so afraid of? Is it that man you saw? He’s been dead for years. We found that out when we identified him.”

“I don’t like to talk about it. That boy asked me too, and I warned him to stop.”

That boy? Lila cast around for who that might be. “Do you mean Jim Sutcliff, who did the podcast?”

Paulina scowled at her. Lila realized she was doing a terrible job of getting the woman to drop her defenses.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. Let’s not talk about Allison, may she rest in peace.”

The artist muttered something about “that’s not likely,” then took a bite of her muffin.

“So tell me more about what life was like for you back in those days? What was the dating scene like?”

That got a hoot out of the woman. “‘Dating scene.’ That’s a funny way to put it, when it was mostly just find a warm body to get you through the winter.”

“Ooh, sounds juicy. I bet you were a hot ticket.”

“I was a woman, wasn’t I?” A mischievous smile touched her lips. “I had my share of lovers. Men and women.”

“Scandalous.”

“I’m an artist. I don’t put boundaries on my sexuality.”

Lila put up a hand to high-five the older woman. She hadn’t expected the conversation to turn this direction, but if it helped her loosen up, bring it on. “Any names you can share? What about Gwen?”

“Oh no, we were always just friends. Gwen was shy, but she had very close friends of the male persuasion.”

Lila wondered if she meant Paul Anthony Bowman, but didn’t want to upset her again by saying his name.

“What about Nancy? Who was she hooking up with?”

“Nancy…Nancy was a wild one. Everyone knew not to mess with her. Men tried it all the time. She was very beautiful, but she didn’t want a man around full-time. Especially after—” She snapped her mouth shut.

“With…” Lila prompted.

“You should get out of here. I can’t talk about Nancy.”

Another friend that she couldn’t—or wouldn’t—talk about.

She pulled the red silk bookmark from her coat pocket and laid it on the table. “Did Nancy happen to keep a diary?”

Paulina gave another fearful look around her place. Lila couldn’t imagine where she thought an eavesdropper would be hiding. She lowered her voice. “Where did you find that?”

“Bear found it. Is it hers? Is this her handwriting?”

After peering at it for a long moment, Paulina gave a grudging nod. “Could be. Hang on.”

She got to her feet and went to a small escritoire that held a jumble of papers. She came back with a card from a long-ago Christmas. “Nancy gave this to me. You can compare it.”

To Lila’s eye, it was the same handwriting. “Did she keep a journal?”

A massive struggle seemed to take place within Paulina. Finally, she practically whispered, “Yes. All her life. She said she had them all in a storage locker in Anchorage, except the one she was working in.”

A thrill of excitement shivered down Lila’s spine. They were getting closer. “So this bookmark could have come from that journal. Do you know where the rest of it could be?”

Paulina shook her head. “She probably took it with her when she left.”

“When was that? After the shootings?”

More inward struggling from the artist. Lila felt bad putting her through this, but she was so close to something important. She could feel it. “Nancy left before the shootings.”

“Really? Why did she leave?”

“She was scared. Ever since she came back from Snow River, she was…jumpy, I guess you’d say. She was pregnant too.”

Lila drew in a sharp breath. “She got pregnant at Snow River?”

“I don’t know where. But something happened out there that scared her. Allison knew all about it, maybe Gwen too, but I was wrapped up in my first big commission and I didn’t see them much. Nancy left, and then the next day, Allison was dead at the airstrip and the whole town was shut down so they could hunt for who did it. After a few days I skied out toward Gwen’s, and…you know what happened after that.”

“Do you know who the father of Nancy’s baby was?”

The artist shook her head. “She wouldn’t tell us. There were always men drooling after her.”

“Why didn’t she want to tell her closest friends?”

“Do you tell your friends everything?” Paulina gave her a pointed look, then smiled smugly when Lila shook her head. She hadn’t even told her friends that she was sleeping in Bear’s bed every other night. There hadn’t been time. But none of them would be surprised.

She changed tacks. “What do you know about the place in Snow River where Nancy was cooking?”

“Those wacky men’s retreats? I don’t know much, but some well-known people went to those retreats. They cost a mint.”

“Did you ever go out there?”

“Hell no. Nancy asked if I wanted to help out, make some easy money. But I’d just sold my first painting and I was on fire to do more. Glad I didn’t, too, because when she came back…like I said, she was different. Scared.” She shuddered. “I tried to put all that behind me. We all did.”

“Yes, I know. I’ve noticed that people don’t like to talk about those shootings. You know what I’m afraid of?” Lila waited until she had Paulina’s full attention. “That no one will ever speak up and whatever the truth is, it will die out and never be known.”

Paulina scowled at the muffin she still held in one hand. “Just lost my appetite. Might feed this to the birds. You better go now.”

Lila let out a long sigh. Silence was a hard habit to break. She rose to her feet and gently touched Paulina on the shoulder. “Is there anything I can do for you before I leave? Any chores you’d rather palm off on someone else?”

“You could fix my path before you go.”

“The path from the road? You want me to shovel it?”

“No, I want the snow back where it belongs.”

Lila laughed, and promised she’d do what she could to un-shovel the path. Then she washed the dishes piled up in Paulina’s sink—that got no objections from the woman—and took the compost out to the frozen bin behind her house.

In the snowy yard, she looked up at the piercingly blue sky and pictured Allison waiting on the tarmac for the mail plane to arrive. Was she waiting for an important package? Or did she have something she wanted to send back with the plane?

Which reminded her of something…

She frowned, picturing these pioneer women from forty years ago, sticking together in order to survive.

When she got back inside the house, cheeks tingling from the cold, she asked Paulina, “Did you and your friends share clothes back and forth?”

“Good lord, no. We didn’t have any place to buy clothes here, so we always ordered from a catalogue through the mail.”

And just like that, it clicked. “Did you ever order the same thing?”

“Oh sure. Sometimes we did it on purpose, if they had a two-for-one sale or something.”

Bingo! That other dress, the “prank” dress, must have belonged to one of Allison’s friends. Nancy?

Paulina was yawning as she swirled her paintbrush in a glass of turpentine. Time to go. “One more question before I head out. Do you know where Nancy went after she left here?”

”No, but it was probably somewhere snowy. Nancy was a champion distance skier, a real good one. She went everywhere on skis as soon as there was snow. Hating driving. Terrified of flying. That was one reason she liked Fangtooth because we get so much snow.”

Interesting. That felt like an important detail, but Lila wasn’t quite sure why.“You know what else?” Paulina snapped her fingers. “I just remembered something I overheard at the hardware store a few days before Nancy left.”

Lila held her breath, afraid even one word would send her off course.

“I heard Allison tell her, in a real low voice, ‘I’ll take care of it. You better get away from here while you can.’”