Endless Night
A person loaded up with a stack of boxes approached the lodge. Jackie scooted ahead to hold the door. The figure hesitated for a moment. Jackie shivered when she recognized the man.
“Thanks,” Roman said. “June’s cooking supplies.”
“You’re welcome.” Jackie noticed he seemed thinner than she remembered, but his arms and broad shoulders seemed just as iron-strong as he hefted the heavy crates with ease over the threshold. He disappeared down the hallway and she joined the assorted diners in the family eating-area. A huge fire was crackling and the room was filled with cheerful laughter and conversation. She recognized the honeymooning couple, a portly man and his wife, with skin nearly as white as their matching sweaters, and Byron Lloyd. Purposefully sliding into the empty space next to Lloyd, she filled her plate with scrambled eggs, June’s homemade blueberry scones and succulent sausages.
Her stomach growled and it dawned on Jackie that she hadn’t eaten a full meal since before her flight. She tried not to wolf down the food.
“Did you sleep well, Mr. Lloyd?”
“Like a log. I’ve been traveling for work for the past twenty-five years so I can pretty much sleep on anything. You?”
“Fairly well. It must be exciting to be a journalist.” Jackie noticed a sour-faced Fallon seating herself at the far end of the table.
“You bet. And you? What’s your line of work?”
She’d been ready for the question. “I’m between jobs right now. I’ve often thought about writing.”
He laughed. “Most folks I meet say the same thing. What was your job back home?”
She ignored the question. “The more I think about it, the more I like the idea. How did you get into the writing business, Mr. Lloyd?”
“Call me Byron.” He took a sip of coffee. “I’ve done all kinds of things, just sort of fell into it.”
“And what publication did you say you wrote for?”
“Adventure Roads. It’s a nice little rag.”
Jackie felt a presence at her elbow. She kept her body turned toward Lloyd, determined to wring more information out of the man, who she knew was not who he seemed to be.
Roman stood, shifting uneasily, a plate in his hands. Surely there was another place at the table somewhere. He found the benches filled with happy, munching people. The only available spot was next to Jackie, who seemed to be grilling Byron Lloyd. Roman was just about to turn around when Lloyd spotted him.
“Hey, young fella. Here’s a seat for you.” Lloyd shifted over and cleared a place between himself and Jackie.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll eat in the kitchen.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” said June Delucchi, replacing an empty platter of sausages with a steaming new batch. “The kitchen is insane. I’ve got breakfast going out and lunch already simmering, plus the baking to start for the snow-sculpture crowd. If you eat in there, you’re liable to wind up in the stew pot.”
Mr. Lloyd beamed. “Better not cross a lady with a knife collection.”
Roman shot a glance at Jackie, who kept her gaze studiously fastened to her coffee cup. Sighing internally, he eased onto the bench, his arm tingling where it brushed against hers.
Lloyd clapped him on the back. “So, you two know each other, huh?”
Roman filled his mouth with eggs and nodded.
“Ever travel back to San Fran to visit her?”
He swallowed. “Only once a couple years ago.” He’d sure imagined returning, though. How they’d see all the places she’d talked about. He didn’t have much of a yen to travel, but for her, with her, anyplace would feel like home. The idea seemed like a child’s fantasy to him now. To clear his head he took a deep swallow of coffee and burned his mouth.
Skip entered, frowning at a clipboard.
“Need some help, Skip?” Roman called over the clatter of the meal.
Skip looked up, momentarily disoriented. “No, no thanks. You eat your breakfast.” He returned his attention to the clipboard and continued on toward the kitchen.
“He looks worried.”
The soft voice surprised him. He looked at Jackie, who was following Skip’s progress out of the room. “Yeah, I guess he does.”
She kept her voice low. “Is the lodge business struggling?”
He shrugged. “It attracts a steady crowd, but the economy has hurt everyone.” He wanted to say more, to keep her talking, but each word seemed a fresh reminder of what he’d had, and what he’d lost. It was too much. Picking up his plate, he made an excuse and stood up.
“What’s the matter, man?” Lloyd boomed. “A strapping fellow like you can’t live on two bites of breakfast.”
“I’ve got a…” Roman’s words were lost in a crash and shout from outside. He put his plate back on the table and ran out the front entrance, right behind Skip and June Delucchi, who had emerged from the kitchen. Jackie, Lloyd and a few other guests jogged out after them.
An overturned snowmobile lay on its side, engine sputtering. Nearby a groaning man clapped a hand to his leg. Dax, a handyman for the lodge, knelt next to the injured man. Skip ran to them.
“What’s happened?”
Dax shook his head. “Reg hit a rock or something, maybe a buried tree limb. Snowmobile went over and I think he busted his ankle.”
The man on the ground moaned. “Not busted, just sprained.”
Roman hid a smile. Typical Alaska toughness. “Looks like there’s some swelling. You need an X-ray, at least.”
Talking over the grumbling from the stricken man, Skip and Dax made arrangements for Dax to drive to the nearest clinic. Reg was gingerly loaded onto a truck and sent off, in spite of his loud protests.
Roman looked at Skip and June. They’d moved away a piece and were having a serious conversation. He noticed June wiping away tears before she headed back to the lodge with the curious guests.
Jackie remained.
Roman put a hand on Skip’s arm. “What can I do to help?”
Skip waved him off. “Nothing. You’ve already got more cargo to fly in for us.”
“Not until later. I can help here.” He gestured to the front loader. “I can fill some blocks while you go get the tape to mark it. We can find someone to stomp it down.”
Skip shook his head. “I can’t ask you to do that.”
Roman headed toward the front loader. “You don’t have to.”
Skip gave him a grateful smile and left.
Before he started the engine, Roman looked up in surprise to find Jackie climbing the ladder perched against the wooden form farthest away from him.
“You don’t have to do that, Jackie,” he called. “I don’t need help.”
She looked up only for a moment. “Skip does,” she yelled back.
That’s right, Roman. She doesn’t care about you anymore. That’s the way it will always be. Get that through your thick head. His head already knew—it was his heart that needed convincing, he thought grimly, even after two long years.
Roman turned his attention to the front loader, fired the engine to life and began scooping up piles of snow and dumping them into the ten-foot wooden forms that would mold it into perfect blocks for sculpting. When one was relatively full, Jackie would climb up and stomp it all down before he added another load. When the snow was uncrated it would create perfect ten-foot-by-ten-foot squares. They kept at it. He could see the fatigue in her body, the tired droop to her head, yet she worked without complaint until June caught his eye from the front porch and gestured for them to come in for lunch.
Roman killed the motor and jumped down from the front loader. His hands were stiff. They’d filled only eleven of the boxes completely—still another five to go. He made his way over to Jackie, who had not seen June’s summons. She was busily stomping down snow with a vengeance.
“Jackie? Lunch-break command from Mrs. D.”
She nodded and began to climb down the ladder. As she did so, the ladder pitched loose from the side of the box and wobbled, causing her to lose her footing. Jackie slipped, maintaining her grip on the ladder with only one hand, until she fell.
There wasn’t time to think about it. Roman caught her as they tumbled to the ground. She landed next to him, eyes wide, lips parted in shock. The feel of her small frame against his side, the softness of her hair tickling his chin drowned him in memory for a moment. He could have imagined it, but for the briefest second he felt her lean her head against his shoulder.
With a sudden movement she scrambled to her feet. Roman did the same. Jackie turned to face him, her cheeks flushed a deep crimson. “Thanks…I, I must be tired to fall off a ladder.”
He shrugged, hoping she could not read his feelings on his face. “You’ve been working hard. No harm done.”
Jackie giggled. “Sorry, but you’ve got a clump of snow stuck right to the top of your head.”
He held still while she reached out and brushed the snow off his hair.
He flushed and let her finish.
“Thanks again, for the soft landing.” She turned and started toward the lodge, pulling her gloves off and unzipping her pocket to put them inside. As she did so something small and metallic spiraled down. Jackie started frantically, twirling around, peering at the snow-covered ground to find the item. Her face was stark, body tense.
Roman joined her in the search. “What fell?”
“Nothing. Nothing important.”
The lie was obvious in her increasing panic. He bent over to squint at the harshly glittering snow until he saw the item and picked it up. He didn’t get time to look closely, as she snatched it from his fingers.
“Thanks. That’s it. Um, thank you. Thanks again.” Without a word of explanation, she jogged toward the building, leaving him to wonder.
Whatever was on that thumb drive, she acted like it was a matter of life and death.
FIVE
She couldn’t get over the fear that had enveloped her when she’d dropped the thumb drive. And Roman—what had he thought when he retrieved it for her? She could still feel his big hands on her waist, trying to catch her as she fell. Those hands had comforted her through her entire youth, it seemed. For a split second she wished with every pore of her body that things had been different.
She made her way to her room with a tray of food provided by June and shot an uneasy glance at the sky, a brilliant blue that seemed to shimmer with intensity. She’d heard one of the kitchen staff mention that a blizzard was in the forecast, but she hoped it wasn’t true. Skip was counting on a successful snow-sculpture weekend, and she prayed he would get it.
Cresting the small ridge to her cabin, she was startled to see two people making their way in the deep snow off the path. The snowshoes strapped to their feet gave them a comical gait. It was Byron Lloyd and a smaller figure who it took her a moment to identify. Fallon. They both waved.
Jackie watched Fallon for a moment. The girl’s face was thrown back in laughter. She was a young woman, no longer a child, but there was still plenty of the girl showing through. Jackie’s heart squeezed, thinking about how much Danny’s death must have hurt Fallon. Jackie had been so wrapped in her own grief and anger, she hadn’t given much thought to Fallon’s.
Shaking her head to clear it, she unlocked the door to her cabin. Her stomach clenched as she stuck the key in and found the door already unlocked. As it swung open, all of her plans were forgotten. She screamed.
Skip made it to her cabin first, still holding a half-eaten sandwich in his hand, but Roman was close behind. Jackie stood immobile in the center of the room, surveying the damage around her. The contents of her bag were scattered over the bed, shirts, socks and pants draping the coverlet. The bathroom medicine cabinet was open and her few toiletries in disarray.
Skip swallowed the bite he’d been chewing. “What in the world?”
Roman moved closer and spoke softly. “Someone was looking for something. Anything taken that you can tell?”
Her eyes darted to the computer, the only real thing of value besides the satellite phone she’d had in her backpack. Both were still there, but the computer was on. She breathed a quick prayer of thanks that she’d deleted the message Asia had sent. But what if Asia had forwarded more while she was helping pile snow? What had the intruder seen? Her skin prickled, and she itched to scan her inbox but with Roman and Skip there, she didn’t dare.
“No, nothing taken.” She felt a shudder sweep through her, and she wrapped her arms around herself to hold it in.
Skip shook his head. “Never in the years I’ve owned this place has something like this happened. Whoever it was must have picked the lock or gotten the spare from the lodge office.” He sighed. “We’ll have to go to the police when we’re in town. See what they make of it.”
Jackie jumped. Was she ready to explain to the cops? How could she tell them about the break-in without revealing the whole sordid mess? “No, I don’t think that’s necessary.”
Skip stared at her. “Why not?”
She forced a laugh. “It’s probably just a prank. There was no harm done, nothing stolen, no one hurt.” But it wasn’t a prank. The person who’d been snooping on her laptop hadn’t found what they were after, so they’d come back and searched more thoroughly.
Roman raised an eyebrow, but didn’t speak. He cocked his head and his long bangs shadowed his face. Jackie wished she could read his thoughts.
Skip looked unconvinced. “Well, if you’re sure, I certainly have other things to focus on today. I’d put you in another cabin, but we’re full up. In any case, I’ve got one of those latch locks we can add. I can try to get Dax to install it.”
“I’ll do it.”
Roman’s voice was so low she almost didn’t hear it.
Skip shot a glance at him and then at Jackie. “I’d sure appreciate it, Roman. I’d never ask, but I’m just plain swamped.”
“I’ll do it after my last flight this afternoon.”
Skip nodded and headed for the door. “I’m awful sorry about this, Jackie. I hope it doesn’t ruin your vacation. I can’t imagine who would do such a thing and why.” He plodded out into the snow.
At that moment her phone rang. She moved to a corner to answer, hands shaking.
“Ms. Swann?” The voice was muffled.
“Who is calling?”
“Officer Smith, S.F.P.D. We’ve been looking for you. We have some questions about the situation at your employer’s.”
Something in the stilted tone made her uneasy. “Okay, but first tell me the name of your supervising officer and your badge number.”
There was a long moment of silence. “You are the one being questioned here.”
“Not until you give me the information.”
The tone of the voice changed. “Look, honey. We know where you live and the make and model of your car. We even know where your father lives. All we want is that thumb drive. You hand that over and you get your life back.”
Her stomach spasmed. “Don’t threaten me,” she snapped.
“We’ll get to you. It’s a matter of time. You’d better keep your mouth shut.”
She hung up, head spinning. Reynolds’s men knew she was here. Had they paid someone at the lodge to search her room? Or sent one of their own men? She thought of Byron Lloyd.
Her knees began to tremble with a sudden violence. Before she sank to the floor, Roman caught her and helped her to a chair. She sat there clinging to his hand, terror threatening to sweep her away.
He knelt next to her, eyes searching, and gently stroked her hand.
“What is it?” he whispered. “What is wrong, Jackie?”
She clutched his fingers, trying to will his strength into her body. It was too much. She’d gotten herself into a place she could not get out of. They would find her. She shivered. They already had. “I don’t know what to do.”
He frowned. “About what?” He leaned closer. “Tell me, Jackie. Let me help you.”
His face shone with concern. If she could just lean on him, trust him as she had for so many years. Her father’s words came back to her. Roman killed your brother. Don’t ever forget that. Though she wanted more than anything to lay her burden on his wide shoulders, she could not. Not with Roman. Allowing him into her life again would reopen wounds that were still ragged with agony. With a painful effort, she pulled her hand out of his grasp. “Nothing. A delayed reaction to all this. I’m okay.”
“You don’t look okay.”
She forced herself to breath normally, to still the shaking of her hands. “Really, I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. If you don’t want to share your problem with me, I guess I can understand that.” His eyes clouded. “I know that all ended a long time ago, but maybe you’d better confide in someone who can help you.” He gestured around the room. “This looks like more than you can handle on your own.”
Her whirl of emotion exploded into a fiery rage. “Don’t tell me what I can or can’t do. I’ve handled it all, including laying my brother to rest. And where were you, Roman? You were nowhere. Did you call? Write? Did you even think about how I was handling things without my brother and my father, sick with grief?” She found herself sobbing.
Roman looked as if he’d been punched. “I’m sorry. I wanted to talk to you, but I couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t hurt you more. I wrote, but I never mailed the letters.”
“You just didn’t want to face up to what you did.”
He shook his head. “I’ve had to face up to that every day, every minute of my life.” He started toward the door and continued, his voice almost a whisper. “Just so you know, I visit the spot where you scattered Danny’s ashes all the time. And I was there that day, at the funeral, watching from the bluff.”
She almost didn’t hear his last words. “I think I died that day, too.”
“I…I didn’t know. You should have come to me at the funeral.”
His eyes glittered. “Come to you? Would you have wanted the person who killed your brother there? Would your father?”
She couldn’t answer.
He sighed. “That’s what I thought. I’ve got to go now.”
After he’d left she tried to still the trembling that swept through her. He’d been there, on that terrible day, enduring the grief and shouldering his own deep sense of guilt. She had never known that he’d shared the blackest moment of her life.
The idea was too much, too dark.
Desperately she tried to direct her mind to something else.
With shaking hands, she nudged the computer to life, praying a new message from Asia hadn’t arrived when the intruder was in the cabin. It seemed an eternity before the inbox swam into view. No new messages.
The relief took her breath away. She pulled up a search engine and input Adventure Roads Magazine.
“Let’s see if you’re telling the truth, Mr. Lloyd.” The Web site was slick and colorful. Part of her felt disappointed. She’d been half expecting to find there was no such magazine, but here it was in bold, splashy color. An online archive made it easy to search all prior issues.
This time when the search was finished, Jackie felt not disappointment, but sick dread. There wasn’t one single article by anyone named Byron Lloyd.
Roman had a hard time keeping his mind on his work as he checked over the plane.
Jackie was terrified of someone, perhaps the same someone who had broken into her room. He fought a strong desire to return to check on her, call her, drop everything and find her that very moment.
Jackie felt like he’d abandoned her, killed her brother and left her to handle the grief alone. He slammed the toolbox shut. The past couldn’t be changed, but what about the present situation? Who was after her? And why? Even the thrum of the plane’s engines when he fired them to life a half hour later did not calm his thoughts. He noted the increasing cloud cover. Possible blizzard approaching.
It would be devastating for Skip and the snow-sculpture competition. With each competitor forking over several hundred dollars to participate, Skip would get to keep a nice chunk of the entry fee to cover costs. He’d also make a hefty bit of change selling food—if the weather didn’t interfere. Roman hoped the blizzard held off. Skip seemed stressed and distracted lately. He didn’t need anything else on his plate. Skip was like a father to him. He couldn’t bear to see him so pained. Roman’s own father was only a distant memory, a man who’d left when he was just a kid.
He was surprised to see Jackie with Skip as they approached the cleared landing strip.
He opened the passenger-side door for her. “You going along?”
She nodded, her face screened by a curtain of coppery hair and showing no signs of her earlier outburst. “I’ve got to do some business at the bank.”
He wondered, but didn’t question as they flew toward the airport. “Skip and I have to get the supplies loaded, then I can drive us into town. Okay by you, Skip?”
The man looked up from a piece of paper he’d been perusing. “What?”
Roman repeated the plan.
“Sure, sure. That’s fine.” He returned his attention to the paper.
Jackie turned. “Everything okay, Skip? You seem worried about something.”
Skip started. “Who me? Nah. Just all the fuss about Winterfest. I’m fine.”
Jackie faced front again but Roman saw her looking at Skip in the side mirror. She too felt there was something not quite right. Roman tried to keep his mind fixed firmly on the approaching airport, though the scent of Jackie’s newly washed hair triggered a cascade of memories. He remembered how it had looked at the funeral; smooth, twisted into a coil of fire that glimmered in the sunlight.
Not now, Roman. Not ever.
They landed and jogged through the frigid air into the loading area. Crates of fresh vegetables, flour and sugar and frozen meats were ready and waiting. Skip arranged for signatures, and Roman waved to Al as the heavyset man climbed onto a forklift. After he finished the paperwork, Skip climbed up a ladder to a landing ten feet above them, and began sorting the crates into efficient stacks.
Roman turned to Jackie to tell her there was coffee in the terminal but found her busily scanning a message board that flashed the incoming and outgoing flights. Her face was drawn in a look of such concentration, he started over to see exactly what had caught her interest so completely. He’d made it only a few steps when a cry made him turn.
The forklift lurched unexpectedly backward and toppled, sending the machine over. The violent jerk made Skip lose his balance. He yelled, holding desperately onto the edge of the landing, dangling in the air.
Al struggled to free himself from the overturned equipment. Roman ran to cut the engine on the forklift while he yelled to Skip, “Hang on.”
Skip would not be able to maintain his grip for long. A ten-foot fall onto a stack of wooden crates might just break the man’s back.
“I’ll go to the ladder,” Jackie yelled, running across the lot to a ladder fixed to the far side of the loading dock.
“No time.” Roman climbed on the tipped forklift and eased his way onto the nearest stack of boxes. They shifted ominously under his feet. Pulse pounding, he leaped onto a stack of crates a second before the one he was standing on gave way with a lurch. Boxes toppled down underneath him but Roman’s eyes were fixed on the man who desperately gripped the landing ledge a few feet above him.
Continuing up as quickly as he could, Roman crawled across the stacked boxes and with the biggest leap he could manage, hurled himself onto the platform. He made it, barely. Muscles straining, he hoisted a leg over the ledge, then the other and scrambled over to the spot where Skip struggled to hang on.
Grasping Skip by both wrists, Roman kept his own body as close to the landing as possible to keep from being pulled over the edge. With every bit of strength left, he hauled Skip back onto the platform. They both lay there for a moment, sweating and panting. Jackie made it up the ladder and ran over to them.
Jackie’s face was white as she knelt next to Roman and Skip, trying to assess both men at once. “Are you hurt?”