Page 42

As they drove back toward town, they were both quiet. The events of the past few days had been overwhelming. To Bear, it felt as if years’ worth of injustice had been brought to light and released.

Even when it came to his own life.

“Got a call from Cromwell,” he told Lila. He’d been keeping this one quiet so he could think on it. “He says my old police chief back in Bethel could be caught up in this thing. The tentacles go far.”

Lila pulled off her mitten and touched his leg. “I hope he apologized while he was at it.”

“Actually, he kind of did, in a backwards way. He offered me a job.”

“What? In Blackbear?”

He saw the shock on her face and quickly reassured her. “I turned him down. I don’t think I’m cut out for the force. Too much time in Firelight Ridge. I’m a renegade now.” He grinned down at her.

“For the record, I would have offered support no matter what you decided.”

“Also for the record, I would have talked it over with you first if I was seriously considering it.”

He put his hand over hers, and she squeezed it. A bald eagle glided over the road about ten yards ahead of them. Somehow it felt like a sign.

“I hope your old chief has to answer for what he did to you,” she said.

“He might. Cromwell told me they’re putting together another task force to sort all this out.”

“Will you be on it?”

“No, because I’m a witness. I might have to testify. Molly said she’d represent me.”

Lila turned to him with a beaming smile. “Do I or do I not have the best friends in the world?”

“You do. But those women back there are pretty solid too.”

“Oh yeah.” Lila grabbed onto her seat as they bounced across an especially hard rut in the icy road. “It’s like I always say, when women stand up for each other, nothing can stop us. I knew that even when I was a kid. Whenever I saw a girl who felt left out, I’d make friends with her. Maybe we were misfits, but we had each other. And now look at us.”

Just another reason, among so many, that he loved this woman. He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it.

When they passed the spot where Lila had gone off the road, she said, “I’m glad that I was wrong and no one messed with the truck after all. Nancy didn’t, Grant didn’t, and the Hardwell people never came into town. That was just my inexperienced driving.”

“Are you sure?” Bear veered to the side of the road and brought the truck to a stop. “When it comes to you, Lila, I no longer believe in coincidences. Come on, let’s take a look around.”

Every time he demonstrated how much he believed in her, she loved him more. She pulled on her hat and gloves and followed him out into the snow. The spot where she’d spent time in the dark truck watching a bear wander past was covered with new snow. Of course.

But Bear must have seen something she didn’t—he was an experienced tracker, after all. They followed a trail of broken branches and bits of fur, until they came to a place where the roots of an ancient spruce clung to a boulder.

“Bear den,” Bear said softly. “Move very quietly.”

She nodded, and decided that in this instance, the safest spot for her was right behind him. He was the bear expert around here. He scanned the nearby trees, the bushes nearly buried under snow, whatever bits of the ground were visible under the forest canopy.

Finally, he saw what he was looking for. A flash of bright orange in an abandoned nest too high for her to even reach. “Magpie nest,” he said softly. He reached for the nest and gently tugged the item free.

It was a Gore-Tex glove in neon orange and black. A hunter’s glove. Stained with blood.

“Rita’s killer.” His certainty echoed hers. “I’m betting this blood is hers. And they’ll be able to get a DNA sample from any hair or skin cells left inside there. My guess is it’s either Billy Hardwell or one of his guys. Probably Billy himself, because it was a throwing knife, not any professional version.” He drew a plastic baggie from his pocket and dropped it inside.

Lila smiled at him in wonder. “You did it. You solved Rita’s murder.”

“Maybe. We’ll see. I’m still getting some side eye from the police. They don’t like admitting someone got paid off to bury the Snow River murders. But hey, if they don’t want to hear from me, Grant is still hanging around writing up his bombshell investigation into the biggest coverup in Alaska history. I’m sure he’d love to include a bloody glove.”

“I hope he credits the magpie. And the bear. Really, if you think about it, the wilderness solved this case.”

Bear grinned at that. “Give credit where it’s due. Don’t mess with the wilderness. It has a long memory. Come on, let’s let that bear sleep.”

“Goodnight, bear,” she said softly. “See you in the spring.”

They waded through the snow, through the quiet woods, back to the truck. After they’d passed from the shadowed depths of the forest to the sunlit road easement, Bear said, “You said, see you in the spring to the bear. That means you’re staying?”

The uncertainty in his voice made her stop in her tracks.

“Bear. Of course I’m staying.”

He caught her hand and pressed it to his chest. She decided to tease him, just a little bit.

“Why wouldn’t I stay when things are so exciting here? Charlie and Nick are coming for Christmas, and they’re bringing Hailey. I have to help Ani set up her new clinic. Gil and Lachlan have a secret project they’re working on, it has something to do with extending battery life in cold climates. It’s so fascinating. Molly and Sam just told me they’re pregnant!” She shifted to a more serious topic. “Besides, I’ve been feeling…”

“What?” He looked bemused by her bombardment of friend-news.

“Well, this is for you and me. I want to stay here with you. But not just here. I think if we work together, we can help find some of those women who went missing. You have police training and I have my weird mind. That’s what my intuition is telling me. There’s more for us to do, and we should do it. I want to do it.”

He was watching her with a smile playing across his lips. She could tell he liked the idea. She’d become an expert at reading his most subtle of expressions. “It could be dangerous.”

“So I’ll practice my knife-throwing a little more.”

He laughed and opened the passenger door to his truck. “What about the bar?” he asked as he helped her up to the seat.

“I think our regulars can run it perfectly well while we’re gone. It’s all about community, right?”

Which was truer than she’d ever imagined. Without Molly and Sam and Buster, who’d been at The Fang when Molly had gotten back with poor injured Grant, and Grant, who had backed up Molly’s story to Officer Cromwell, and even Cromwell, who had mobilized the convoy of helicopters…without the Firelight Ridge community, she and Bear might still be holed up in a snow shelter.

Not that the shelter was so bad. She’d treasure that wild snowy night to the end of her days. “Any more blizzards in the forecast?” she said hopefully. “So we can cuddle up in bed and listen to the wind?”

He laughed as he started up the truck. “Always. There’s always another blizzard coming. What would life be like without the occasional blizzard?”

She searched her heart and found nothing but certainty that she could handle those blizzards, whether made of snow or otherwise. A voice inside her whispered, It’s okay. You’re okay. Feel free to step into the future .

Free.

So different from the way she used to exist, from one panicked move to the next. She smiled at him as he started up the truck and thought about her dream of flying through the snow next to a bear who would always catch her. “Blizzards are much nicer when you have a bear with you.”

Bear might not talk a lot, but he knew how to make his words count. He took her hand in his, warm and strong. “That’s good, then. Because you always will.”

Thank you so much for reading!