Mountain Refuge. Sarah Varland
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season, missing mountain running, her hikes with the tourists, time with her family... For what? Yeah, this man was dangerous—she definitely knew that. The police department would need to catch him before he harmed anyone else. But this had been a crime of opportunity. As long as she didn’t make herself an easy target, there was no reason to believe this man would come after her again... Was there?
Not to mention, the thought of leaving town and going somewhere by herself made her seriously uneasy. She shivered at the memory of how alone and vulnerable she’d been when she’d run from her would-be killer. All she wanted right now was to go home and surround herself in comfort, familiarity and her siblings’ love until she felt safe again. The idea of leaving her support network behind felt chilling and wrong.
“I’m not going to a safe house, Noah. You’re going to have to figure something else out.”
A few beats of silence passed.
“Let me see what else I can work out,” Noah said slowly. “Summer, would you mind stepping outside with Officer Lee?”
She looked at her brother, looked at Clay and frowned a little, then looked back at Noah.
Then she nodded, stepped outside of the room with the other officer and shut the door. And hoped she might find an unlikely ally in Clay, that he’d be able to convince Noah to drop the safe house idea. Anything had to be better than that.
* * *
“You want me to do what?” Clay said on the off chance he might have heard wrong.
Noah repeated himself. “I’m going to have Tyler assign you to do everything Summer does at the lodge so you can follow her around, serve as a bodyguard and keep her safe.”
Clay scrambled for words, managing to say, “You don’t even know me.” Had he really moved four thousand miles away from the only home he’d ever known for a fresh start only to be pulled back into the job he’d left behind?
“I know you’re a good man. You come highly recommended by your friends in Georgia and by the police chief of the department where you used to work. We do a pretty extensive background check for people who work at the lodge. Alaska’s a good place for people who are running from something, and summer employment especially can attract those types. I like to know who’s working for my family. So I know a lot about you. And I know you’re more than qualified for the job I want you to do.”
Clay exhaled.
Noah kept his gaze on him steady. The man didn’t seem easily phased, or easily dissuaded—a good quality in law enforcement. Something they had in common, at least according to people Clay had worked with before who had said the same thing about him.
“I want to shoot straight with you,” Noah continued. “I’m not completely comfortable with turning this protection detail over to you. Nothing against you, but she’s my sister and I don’t want to trust anyone but myself to keep her safe. But I can’t devote all my time to that and still do my job. And if I’m not doing my job, then the Moose Haven PD suffers and this guy might be able to keep operating longer with one less agency searching for him.”
“But why me? Surely you’ve got other resources.”
“Limited. You know how it goes in a small town. There’s no proof that there’s an ongoing threat against her and I only have a few officers. State troopers don’t have a lot of manpower to spare down here, either—state cutbacks.”
It had been months since anyone had counted on Clay for anything. Sixty days, almost exactly, since he’d officially worked his last shift in a police department. He met Noah’s eyes, noting that the other man’s look was serious, heavy with expectation. And Clay knew he was going to have to tell him no.
“Don’t you think it’s likely that this was a onetime thing—just Summer being in the wrong place at the wrong time? Our guy might have no idea who Summer is or where to find her even if he wanted to attack again. And protective details weren’t what I signed up for. I came to help Tyler around the lodge.” But the excuse sounded weak even to his ears. Clay winced at his own words.
Noah took them in stride. “Tyler won’t mind. He wants Summer safe too. And...it may not be a onetime thing.”
“What do you mean?” He heard something in the other man’s tone. There was more to this story than overprotective brother syndrome.
“Anchorage Police Department has had a serial killer around the city for the last month and a half or so. Summer fits the age range, the general description—female, between ages twenty-five and early thirties, fit. I’m not entirely sure this isn’t related to that.”
“You think she was deliberately targeted by a serial killer—that he knew where to find her.”
Noah grimaced. “It had barely crossed my mind as a possibility down here in Moose Haven until today. I knew about it, of course—it’s been in the news and I try to keep track. But he hadn’t left the Anchorage area, to our knowledge.”
“What makes you think he has now?”
“Just the general similarities...gut instinct mostly, I guess.”
“So are the troopers going to come investigate?” Clay had researched a bit about the local law enforcement agencies before he’d moved to Alaska, because even though he knew leaving the job behind with his old life was the best course of action, he couldn’t quite give up the idea of returning to it one day.
“No. Not enough similarities for them.”
“From what Summer told you, it sounds like a similar MO though?”
“Yes. I can show you the files for details, though it’s not pretty.”
“What’s missing?”
“He usually kills in pairs. Not together necessarily, but two women in a short time span. Every time, it’s been that way.” Noah stood, paced toward the small window in his office, then returned to face Clay. “Listen, like I told the trooper I spoke to on the phone a few minutes ago, I just have a bad feeling about this.”
“Better safe than sorry,” Clay said without thinking, without realizing that he was essentially agreeing with Noah that Summer needed protection. Was all but offering to do it.
“How many women have been killed?”
“Six.”
“Any survivors?”
“Not until Summer.”
Six women dead. Clay would not let Summer be number seven. He exhaled. Nodded firmly.
“I’ll do it.”
The fire in the fireplace in the front room of the lodge danced and crackled, the only sound in the quiet. Summer walked toward it, enjoying the warmth. It might be summer, but nighttime in Alaska always carried a chill. It was past one in the morning now, and the sky was darkening into the twilight that would last for another two or three hours until the sun fully rose again. Summer shivered. From the darkness? From the cold? She didn’t know, but she was more chilled than usual today, with the events of earlier on her mind.
She’d hoped telling the police about it would soften the details of the attack in her memory, but so far it hadn’t worked. If anything, saying everything out loud had pushed the memories deeper into her psyche, on some track that repeated over and over, replaying like a bad movie.
She wasn’t eager to go to sleep tonight. Summer felt the chances of reliving the attack in her dreams was too great a risk to take. She’d rather be tired.
She moved to the couch and picked up her sketchbook and a few pencils.
“You draw?”
She didn’t turn as Clay’s footsteps