Page 169 of Track of Courage

Zoey.She loved that name—had suggested it, actually—and they’d used it. Zoey Anne Harper. They’d even given her the middle name of Keely’s adopted mother, Anne. She ran her thumb over the chocolate mouth, stared into her eyes.

Gasped.

They looked like Vic’s. Piercing and solid and seeing into her soul.

Keely closed the phone. Stared at the ceiling. Listened to the wind moan and knew in her soul that, indeed, she was a coward.

Like mother, like daughter.

2

SHE’D SIMPLYhave to learn to live with herself.

Keely stood on the tarmac outside the terminal of the Copper Mountain Air Base, burying her chin and nose in her knitted scarf. Her hat was pulled low against the biting wind careening from the jagged, gray cast of mountainscape to the north.

Yeah, give her New York City any day. Sure, the temps dropped into the low thirties, but she could go from her heated condo to her heated garage to her driver’s heated Escalade, right to her studio’s heated entry, where coffee from Stumptown waited for her in her office.

Although, the breakfast today at the Gold Nugget, followed by the coffee from the Last Frontier coffee shop as she’d waited for the plane’s noon departure, had found a place in her heart, especially with one of the bakery’s sinfully delicious cinnamon rolls. She’d watched the sunrise from the warmth of the shop, seated in a log chair, listening to the chatter of the barista about a trial of a local thug. Something about the death of a DEA agent, some takedown of drug runners.

With all the vast wilderness, it seemed logical that they’d have a plethora of crime hidden in the bush, as Alaskans called it.

“Did you weigh this?” The question brought her back to now, on the tarmac, and came from the pilot, a man named Cade “Mack” Maverick, from Maverick Air. Mid-fifties, he had a sort of Indiana Jones feel about him, with his leather jacket, baseball cap, and cockeyed grin. He grabbed her Louis Vuitton carry-on and slung it onto a cart with two other bags. It bounced and nearly fell onto the snowy tarmac.

“It’s twenty-three point two pounds,” she said. She’d packed little, really. A pink velour jumpsuit, a couple pairs of wool socks, extra canvas pants and a white wool sweater, her sleeping supplies—earplugs, eye mask, face tape—and makeup, a few hair products, and of course, the picture album.

Silly.

“Good. Any more, and we’d be overweight. You’d have to wait for the next flight.”

“Thanks for letting me tag along.” She’d prearranged for a flight out later tonight, but frankly...

Well, she had a life to get back to. Enough games, what-ifs, and dodging the only answer that made sense.

“Did you get breakfast? Because we have no food service on board.” He winked at her.

“I ate. Twice. Once at the Gold Nugget, then again at the Last Frontier.” Her voice had started to rasp already. Shoot.

“Oh, Nora makes a whopper of a breakfast. Did you get her wild rice omelet with venison?”

“No. I ... just eggs and sausage.” No more talking. She cleared her throat.

“Oh, her reindeer sausage is award winning.”

Keely managed a smile.Reindeer? Ew.

First thing she’d do when she got home was order a slice of pepperoni pizza from Lombardi’s.

“And you can’t leave town without one of the Frontier’s famous cinnamon rolls, so ... good call. We’ll get this stowed, and thenyou and the others can board.” He lifted his chin to a couple other passengers standing apart from each other.

She glanced over at them. One looked like he should probably be traveling by dogsled. He was dressed in an oversized parka fringed with wool, snow pants, and leather mukluks. A pair of leather mittens stuck out from his pocket, and he carried a rucksack over his shoulder. He looked in his early thirties, maybe, brown hair, wore a hint of a dark grizzle on his chin. Kept checking the sky to the north as if expecting something.

The other seemed a woodsman of sorts. Dark eyes, a bit of a scowl, but who wouldn’t be sour against this biting weather? He, too, wore a dark beard, although longer and a bit unkempt, a wool hat, and a heavy fleece coat and snow boots. A scar parted the beard on his cheek.

She looked at her shearling Prada Ugg-style boots. She’d nearly worn her slide-on slippers, but at the last minute had opted for her mini platform, ankle-height version. After all, it wasAlaska.

An hour, maybe a little more, and she’d be at the Anchorage Airport, booking a flight home, all this nonsense in her rearview.

Mack returned, the cart empty. “Go ahead and climb in.” He glanced over at one of the men, the one in the parka. “Wilder, grab the copilot spot.” He looked at the other man. “Mr. Thornwood, you can sit behind me to balance out the plane.”