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Bear still didn’t know why he’d called Frank. He told himself it was because he’d needed a bartender. But that wasn’t the full story, and a guy could only lie to himself for so long.

He’d wanted her to stay. Full stop. He still did.

With the gas tank filled and safely strapped into the bed of his truck, he drove back to the pullout where the Saab was parked.

Damn. She’d gone to the trouble of buying a car from Gunnar, but hadn’t taken the time to tell him why she wanted to leave. He didn’t say a word as he unscrewed the cap of her gas tank and emptied the can into it. Five gallons would get her to Blackbear, where she could fill up again.

He tossed the can back in the bed and wiped his hands on a blue shop towel. Then he tucked his thumbs in the pockets of his jeans and allowed himself to look at Lila, who was leaning against his truck while she tore open a package of powdered donuts she’d bought at the gas station.

“Well. I guess this is it. I heard the road was washed out about five miles past Kursk. Drive careful. These tires are probably over ten years old.”

She cocked her head with a frown, her hand inside the package of donuts, probably collecting powdered sugar. Lila loved her junk food. “Past Kursk? Oh, I’m sorry, didn’t I mention that I’m not going that way?”

He lifted his eyebrows. There was no other way.

“I’m not leaving,” she clarified. “I was going to, but then I just…couldn’t.”

“Because you ran out of gas.”

“No. I have gas now. I just couldn’t leave. It’s—” She stuck a donut in her mouth, as if trying to stop herself from saying more. After brushing off her hand, she opened her car door. “Someone has to make the soup,” she said through a mouthful of crumbs. “Thanks for the rescue. I’ll see you back at The Fang.”

As he watched, still confused, she got in and rolled down the window. “Please don’t read the note I left.”

“If you left me a note, it belongs to me.”

She turned the key, shifted into reverse, stomped on the accelerator, and was heading back to Firelight Ridge before he had a chance to even hop in his truck.

He chuckled as he started up his truck. It didn’t matter if he never saw her note. She wasn’t leaving. That was what counted.

Now if he could just get her to tell him why she’d tried to leave. And what had changed her mind.

As he shaded his eyes against the bright sunshine reflecting off the river, something caught his eye. Something dark hunched at the edge of one of the channels.

Black bear?

No, it wasn’t moving like a bear. It shifted slightly every time the current tugged at it. It wasn’t alive. Or at least it wasn’t conscious.

A root ball that had been torn up by a storm and tossed into the river? That seemed unlikely, since there had been no big storms recently and it wasn’t really shaped like roots.

Only one way to find out.

He parked his truck again and climbed over the guardrail. The steep embankment was made of crumbling reddish earth that quickly covered his jacket and jeans. A few times, he came close to slipping and barely managed to grab onto a protruding root or a rocky handhold. But he hadn’t spent five years as a police officer in the bush—the most miserable years of his life—for nothing. He’d once climbed up a sheer cliff to help a boy who had lost control of his four-wheeler.

When he finally reached level ground, he checked the mystery object again.

Correction. Not an object. It was definitely a person. He couldn’t tell much more than that, other than it wasn’t a small person. Not a child.

He checked his phone. No service. He’d have to call the Blackbear police after he’d climbed back up that embankment.

Steeling himself, he walked across the gravel that the river had deposited in dunes along its shore. The closer he got, the more his stomach sank. People had drowned in Snow River before. They might be fishing on the shore, slip on the rocks, get swept away. It had been known to happen.

But fishing season was over. There were no more salmon making their way upriver to their spawning grounds. And this person wasn’t wearing hip waders or high boots or oilskins. They hadn’t been fishing.

She. She hadn’t been fishing. He was next to her now. Long wet ropes of hair wrapped around her neck and head like seaweed. She wore a short wool coat. Green and black plaid. She was heavy-set, plump, you could say. He didn’t recognize the coat or anything else about her, so he didn’t believe she was from Firelight Ridge.

He tugged her by the feet to get her fully out of the water. She wore sodden Converse sneakers and jeans. Water streamed off her, saturated the gravel. Had she been trail running? Not in that coat, he thought. Or jeans.

Just to confirm the obvious, he gingerly reached through the tangled strands of hair to find her neck. Her skin was cold, so cold. She couldn’t possibly still be alive. Still, he spent several long minutes searching for a pulse. Nothing. To his eye, she hadn’t been in the water more than a day or so.

He washed his hands in the river, dried them on his pants, and snapped some photos with his phone. He included the exact location where he’d first spotted her body.

Climbing back up that embankment was a lot harder than sliding down. Then he had to drive another mile to pick up a signal.

“Blackbear dispatch, what is the nature of your emergency?” He recognized that bored voice. In fact, he and Carol Hews had enjoyed a two-year fuck-buddy relationship before she’d decided last winter that she wanted a family.

“Carol, it’s Bear. From Firelight Ridge.”

“Bear, I’m sorry but it’s over. You can’t be calling nine-one-one because you want me back.”

“I don’t?—”

“I know. But you don’t have to rub it in. Can’t you just play along?”

No. He couldn’t. Normally, sure. They’d played all sorts of fun games, but now was not the time. “I found a dead body.”

“Shit. No kidding? In Firelight Ridge?” Carol shifted right into professional mode. “GPS says you’re in Kursk.”

“Snow River, right near that overlook on the way to Firelight Ridge. She drowned. Or at least, I found her in the water.”

“You saying you don’t think she drowned?”

“I don’t know how she died, but you’d better send someone out here.”

“Hang on.” He heard the tapping of keys. “It’s going to be about an hour. Can you wait there? With the body? Coyotes might get at it. Bears. Hell, even the eagles are hungry come fall.”

“Yeah, I’ll wait. Who’s coming?”

“Probably Cromwell, he’s closest. Turner if he finishes up a burglary in time.”

Bear let out a silent sigh. He knew all the police in the area, the Blackbear PD, tribal police, and Alaska State Troopers. Firelight Ridge itself didn’t have any law officers, and people tended to treat him as if he was one, just because he had his finger on the pulse of the town.

But only Cromwell knew that he actually had been an officer himself, before things had gone wrong. Cromwell loved rubbing that old nightmare in his face.

He ended the call and scrambled back down the embankment. He wouldn’t be able to fend off wildlife from inside a truck. Hunkering down on a long cedar driftwood log, he settled down to wait.

Interesting coincidence that Lila had parked up at that overlook while there was a dead body washed up on shore a few dozen feet below her. And another thing—why hadn’t she noticed?