Authors: Karen Harper
“I’m just fine, but thanks for the offer,” she told Vanessa. “You just make yourself at home. Go ahead and enjoy some of these appetizers. I’m sure the others will be here soon, and you don’t have to wait for them.”
“Thanks,” she said, shoving her hands in the pockets of her jacket. “So, have you seen Mitch?”
“Not for a while.”
“Lisa?”
“Briefly.”
“Were they together? Oh, sorry, too used to interrogating potential witnesses, I guess,” Vanessa said with a little shrug and smile.
Christine nodded and went back out in the kitchen for more food. She glanced out the window down the path toward the lake landing. No Mitch, when she was expecting—wanting—him back.
She carried the last plate of appetizers to the table. Now Vanessa was pacing inside, pretending to look out the big bubble window. When she saw Christine was back, she said, “I didn’t want to miss anything, but I’ve got to get my exercise in, since my appetite’s gone as wild as the woods up here.”
When Christine put the last plate of food down, the woman came over and pounced on it. “I hope I burn off these calories with everything Mitch has planned,” she said, pouring herself a glass of Chardonnay to accompany her full plate. “Jonas said he’s ready for more of your delicious deep-forest fare, too.”
Christine was willing to bet both of them—Lisa Vaughn, too—had been just plain hungry for Mitch’s old position since he left the law firm. But, yes, where in all creation was Mitch? And, as Vanessa had asked, where was Lisa?
All Lisa wanted to do was sleep, to get lost in the arms of warm, lazy sleep. She must be on the beach because a canvas cabana covered her head and wrapped around her. She loved the sun but knew too much of it on her skin could be dangerous, even deadly. Dangerous…deadly…just get warm. So sore and exhausted…Just stay warm and go to sleep…sleep…
Someone shook her, held her. A lifeguard? Was a lifeguard here because a big wave had hit her?
A man with a deep, raspy voice said, “Lisa, I said you have to keep moving your arms and legs. Wiggle your fingers and toes.”
She dragged her heavy eyelids open. Mitch. Mitch on the beach with her. No, there were tall stone walls, and she could hear the roaring surf. But this wasn’t Florida. “I guess we’re not in Kansas anymore,” Dorothy said to Toto after the tornado had picked her up and spun her silly. Lisa tried to do what Mitch said, what the good witch told Dorothy to do to get home. She tried to click the heels of her sparkly shoes together and make a wish but she had no shoes, and her feet were so cold….
Someone shook her again. Mitch. Mitch was here.
“Lisa, listen to me. I wish we were back at the lodge but we’re not.” He shook her shoulders and squeezed her tighter to him. “You fell in the river. You are hypothermic and you have to get warm. Drink more of this and move your arms and legs.”
It took great effort, but she obeyed. Sore, so sore. But she swallowed a warm, fizzy drink. Champagne? No bottles or glasses were allowed on the beach.
Then she really remembered. Back at the lodge, outside on the lake landing path, she’d been waiting for Mitch. Looking at the roiling water and almost seeing Mother and Jani there, Mother’s face staring up at her through the river foam. And then—
She jolted alert in his arms. Someone had pushed her in! Hadn’t they? No way she had fallen or jumped just because she was thinking about Mother and Jani. Surely Mitch had not pushed her, then rescued her, so he could be a hero, so he could win her back. No, wishful thinking, wishing upon a star.
There’s no
place like home, there’s no place like home.
Home was where your loved ones were. But her loved ones had been swallowed by all that raging white water.
A second jolt shot through her, cosmic compared to anything else except the initial impact of that freezing water. She was in Mitch’s arms, in some sort of bed, and they were both naked.
She tried to sit up. He pulled her back down. Where were they? What had they done? No, no, Mitch was right. She fell in the river, and he must have come after her, saved her. But she fell because she was pushed. But by whom and why?
She went rigid against him. “I’m better, warmer. You can let me go.” She didn’t sound like herself. Her lips were swollen and bruised. She was almost mumbling, stuttering.
“I’d like to believe that, but you were close to comatose. You’ve only been out of the river for about two hours.”
“I—th-thank you. You came in a b-boat?”
“I chased you in the kayak that we were going to take across the lake.”
“Oh.” She tried to process that. Yes, they’d agreed to have a talk, but now this.
“M-Mitch, someone pushed me in the river. I fell down the bank and rolled, but someone pushed me first.”
“You said that.”
“Don’t you believe me?” It came out as
Don’t you leave me.
“When we get back, we’ll look into it. I did see the stuff Christine packed for us strewn down the bank toward the river. Why didn’t you go down to the lake landing to wait for me? Didn’t you see or hear anyone?”
“Hear them, with the roar of the river? I—I was just looking at the salmon in the water. My mind is working all right now. I’m better,” she said, shifting away again. She wanted to remember what had happened, but not feel the hopeless panic, the fear of riding the river. Was her memory messed up like her mind?
And Mitch—he felt more solid than she recalled, so good, warm and strong with rock-hard muscles like the ledge under her. Had Alaska done that to him? Yes, he’d looked more bulked up when she’d seen him yesterday after an entire year apart. If it wasn’t a crazy idea, she’d almost think his new life had made him taller, too.
“I’ll see if your clothes are dry, and we’ll get the wet suit on you for warmth, too,” he said. “The little cookstove may warm your hands, but don’t be in too much of a rush to get up. The shock of it—you’ll come back slowly and may have some scrambled thoughts.”
That’s for sure, she told herself, but demanded, “You don’t believe I was pushed in?”
“It’s good you’re getting angry at me. That will get your blood and temp up—and besides, that’s more like picking up where we left off, isn’t it?”
“That’s all past now. I can’t thank you enough for risking the river to come after me. Can’t I just get d-dressed, curl up and sleep for a while? I’m so exhausted. It’s a trauma for both of us.”
“Sure has been, and not just this river ride. But no, you can’t just go to sleep yet. I’m not the doctor in my family, but I know a hypothermic victim shouldn’t do that—too dangerous for a while. I think it’s like having a concussion. My clothes were soaked, too, and you needed core body heat badly, so if you’re wondering why we’re both undressed in here—”
“I knew that. See, I’m
compos mentis
again.” She had to fight very hard to form thoughts and words. It was like groping for something in the dark. “Thank you, but I’m all r-right now. And if you’re thinking I did really fall in, or just trip—or if you’re thinking what you know about my mother, it isn’t that. Someone pushed me, and I can think of at least two people with motives, maybe more. I wasn’t halluc…hallucinating….”
Her voice trailed off as her thoughts swirled again. Or had she been? Had she actually been pushed in, or had that river lured her, seduced her because, after all was said and done, little Lisa had actually wanted to be with Mommy and Jani? Was little Lisa still terrified that she had sent them right over the edge?
Even though she hadn’t seen her psychiatrist, Dr. Sloan, for years, she heard his voice. “You have to get over the idea you should have died with them or that you caused their fall. I know you blame yourself for
not realizing your mother was so sick, but you were just a child. It wasn’t your fault. None of it was your fault.”
Mitch’s voice broke into the memory. “Lisa, can you hear me? Your eyelids fluttered, and you looked as if you were going to pass out again.”
“Only to sleep. I need to sleep.”
“Me, too, but no. We’re miles overland from the lodge and help—from any civilization—so we’re going to have to hike out of here. Just rest here a few more minutes. I’ll get dressed first, if my stuff’s dry. But keep your eyes open and keep talking.”
“I—I don’t have shoes to hike. The river took them.”
“I know. I’ll make you some from our extra PFD, tape pieces of it around your feet.”
“Wow, a guy who understands how girls love shoes.”
He actually chuckled as he moved out of their warm little cocoon. She caught a glimpse of skin and curly, black chest hair. The cold air slammed in on her, and she fumbled to pull the canvas cover closed. But his laugh had warmed her. That and the fact he told her to keep her eyes open while he crawled out naked on the ledge to get dressed. But she didn’t want to give him the idea she cared about him that way, so she pulled the canvas bag closer around her and turned away.
Just business—and survival—between them now. She had to be strong to help get them out of here and so that he could give a good report on her to the
Bonners. At the very least they would think she was a klutz for falling in the river. Would they all think she was crazy if she claimed someone had pushed her? Maybe she should tell Mitch she had just imagined it, not tell people what had really happened. Then she could investigate who could have pushed her, set someone up for a confession—or, God forbid, another attempt to eliminate her. But who would be that desperate to get rid of her?
But then another thought drifted in. Maybe the person didn’t think she’d really fall in the river, just wanted to warn her or shake her up. But why? Maybe it wasn’t just Jonas or Vanessa who had motive, means and opportunity to shove her down a clearing toward the river.
On Spike Jackson’s plane, flying in from Anchorage to the lodge yesterday, she remembered a strange exchange between him and the Bonners. “So this is some kind of a marathon or endurance test for your candidates?” Spike had asked Graham. Strapped in next to Lisa, Vanessa had strained forward to hear what Graham said over the loud hum of the plane’s single engine.
“Sure, a test of sorts, both with the activities Mitch has on tap for us and some others we have planned,” Graham had said. “We’ll have some group endeavors, some individual efforts.”
Jonas had joked from the single jump seat in the back, next to the pile of luggage, “Like pitting us
against an Alaskan bear or wolf in a deep-woods arena?”
“Nonsense,” Ellie Bonner had piped up. From her place next to Spike in the copilot’s seat, she’d twisted around to face the rest of them. “This is not some face-your-worst-fears,
Survivor
-like game show. Graham and I want you to enjoy yourselves and focus on what are essentially bonding, not competitive experiences.”
“Just so long as she didn’t say ‘bondage,’” Jonas had whispered from the backseat so only Vanessa and Lisa could hear.
But
could
the Bonners have planned some sort of face-your-worst-fear survival test, and hers just got out of hand? Several years ago, after she came to know and trust both of them, she’d confided in them about her childhood tragedy and trauma over dinner at their home.
No. No, she scolded herself. She had to fight being paranoid, had to fight to show everyone she deserved the senior partner position and that she didn’t want Mitch anymore. Maybe bringing her to face Mitch was
really
her endurance test, and now, here she was, alone with him and dependent on him. Surely the Bonners—or Mitch—could not have planned or wanted that.
Her head snapped down, then jerked up. She’d almost nodded off, but he hadn’t seen. He was her rescuer, the one who knew the wilds, so for now she would try hard to do what Mitch said. She chatted,
even chattered, tried to answer his questions about how she felt. She was bruised and battered all over but grateful no bones were broken. She was absolutely aching for sleep. But she had to cooperate so he could get them back to civilization, back to safety at the lodge. But, since—if—someone had pushed her, was it really civilized or safe there?
M
itch knew they had to get off the ledge. He had planned to spend the night here, but if he made Lisa get up and walk, she’d have to stay awake. He was also exhausted and feared he’d fall asleep. The worst scenario was that he’d have to hike out for help alone, but no way could he leave her near the river that could have killed her.
Besides, when he explored, edging along a narrow curve of cliff face, he was excited to discover a cleft in the gorge rocks, one he could even glimpse sky through. On one side of the cleft was a ledge where they could make their way out. From flying over the area with Spike, he knew that beyond these rocks lay not only muskeg, a shallow bog, but dry tundra. And he knew that, because of the contour of the land near the lodge, it would take them days to hike directly back to the west.
So if they could get beyond this gorge, they would go east, then ford the river below the falls where it was divided into braided streams that were much
more shallow. The salmon had easier going there, and they would, too. On the other side of the Wild River was a dirt access road, which might have some traffic from fishermen or hunters who could give them a ride back home. But he wouldn’t tell Lisa all that right now. Finally, he was making decisions for her as he had for so many others.
But, unfortunately, like a few other clients Mitch had defended, he questioned if she was a trustworthy witness of what had actually happened to her. He just couldn’t accept Lisa’s claim she’d been pushed into the river. Who at the lodge would be that desperate and dangerous? Opportunity for that must have been pure chance, and what would be a motive? Surely not just this competition among colleagues the Bonners had set up.
If Lisa had hit her head in a tumble down the slope near the lodge, she could have just thought she was pushed—or be lying about it so she didn’t look careless or reckless to him and the Bonners. No, she wouldn’t be that devious to gain sympathy, even if she’d always been ambitious.
Granted, she had been haunted by the drowning deaths of her mother and baby sister for years. He was sure, though she’d denied it, she’d been suicidal years ago, survivor’s guilt and all that. But to think of her jumping in of her own accord was as crazy as the idea she’d been pushed.
Whatever had happened to get her in the Wild River, they had to risk the ledge over the chasm to get
away from it right now. Even if rescuers rafted or kayaked down the river after them, their attempting to land on the ledge where they were hemmed in could be deadly, or they might shoot right on by toward the falls.
“Lisa!” He hurried back to her. She sat slumped on the ledge with her back to the rock face. Upset she’d fallen asleep even sitting up, he shook her shoulders. “I see a way we can walk out. I think we should go now, since we’ve lost the sun on the ledge. And if the river rises even more, we’d get more than wet here. I’m going to fill our empty cans with water and get things together. Can you get dressed by yourself?”
“Yes. Yes, of course,” she insisted, sounding and looking annoyed right back at him. “I’m just f—”
“Don’t you dare say you’re fine!”
“And don’t try to read my mind! I’m just feeling a bit funny but more alert—that’s what I was going to say.”
“Sorry I jumped to conclusions.”
“Since you only saved my life today, you’re forgiven—for that,” she grumbled.
That warmed him, not only because her spirited response sounded more like her but that she was grateful. She’d thanked him already, but he’d felt so guilty for so long about throwing a fire bomb into her life and then leaving Florida, that maybe, just maybe, what he’d done here could begin to make up for it. Not that he wanted her back—for sure not that—but
it might make him feel less of a heel. On the other hand, he thought, hardening his heart when he realized he wanted to hold her, if she’d really loved him in the first place, she’d have understood and maybe even come with him to Alaska, taken a leave of absence, or visited the lodge on her own—at least given it a shot. He sure wasn’t the only one to blame for their breakup.
The moment stretched out between them as, both frowning, they looked deep into each other’s eyes while the river roared.
“We’re partners at least for getting out of here safely,” he said, then cleared his throat when his voice caught. “And when we get back, we’ll look into what really happened to you.”
She started to say something, then just nodded.
“I’ll pack our stuff,” he added, taking his Swiss Army knife out of his jeans pocket so he had something to do with his hands rather than touch her again. He rose and moved a few feet away on the ledge. “I’ll cut up our extra PFD for your feet.”
“I’m hungry enough that I could eat a piece of a PFD!”
He tried to grin but he knew it was more a grimace. She was not the only one who felt stiff all over. “We’ll have to stick with some of Christine’s dried salmon. Not sure what we’ll find on the other side of the chasm through the gorge, but there should be some berries to eat and fish to catch, if we get out of here.”
“If?”
“I can only see so far down the ledge. We’ll have to watch our footing, that’s all. As a matter of fact, maybe you should go out barefoot, and we’ll put these fancy, schmancy Manual designer shoes on you after.”
“Do you mean Manolos?” she asked with a little laugh.
“Yeah. Just testing your memory.”
He turned away to let her get her clothes on over the body-hugging wet suit she already wore for warmth. He glanced at his waterproof watch and noted it was way past pre-dinner time back at the lodge. Surely they would realize that he and Lisa had not just decided to run away together.
Spike and Christine were overseeing the search effort. Of course, Spike was trying to order her around, but she wasn’t taking any guff from him. Whatever she’d done in the past, she wasn’t going to be a doormat for any man.
Iah,
but Spike Jackson was an imposing man. Nearly six and a half feet tall, red-haired and big-shouldered, he seemed larger than life—certainly larger than any Yup’ik man she’d ever known. Yet he had a lanky grace and a boyish manner at times. But when cornered, or upset as he and all of them were now, he turned into a real macho man.
“Okay, listen up here,” he told the guests assembled in the great room of the lodge. “I radioed my sister, Ginger, and she checked the area across the lake
where Mitch said they were going. No sign of them. The red two-seat kayak’s missing, but sure as hell someone as skilled as Mitch didn’t capsize in the lake.”
“I repeat,” Graham Bonner put in, “I’ll gladly pay for an air search and rescue.”
Christine figured Mr. Bonner was used to being in charge. Still, the Bonners had pitched in to help scour the immediate area of the lodge for Mitch and Lisa. The Bonners were such a handsome couple—trim, silver-haired and blue-eyed. Although they were fish out of water in the Alaskan wilds, she could tell they were used to being in control of all they surveyed.
“Yes,” Ellie Bonner added. “Spike, if we take your plane up, we’ll pay for the gas, and I’ll go with you to copilot while you use binoculars or vice versa.”
Christine guessed Mrs. Bonner was in her late fifties, a natural beauty aging gracefully, petite and pretty with a cap of hair that contrasted with her sharp, sparkling eyes.
“Thanks,” Spike said, “but thick tree cover around here and the river gorge and mountains make that not a good option for spotting them. Besides, they couldn’t have hiked out this fast to the flatter tundra and valley areas where we could see them. Both of his vehicles are still here. They’ve gotta be around somewhere—maybe took a walk in the woods, skidded into a hole, someone turned an ankle, then ’cause of predators, they thought they had to stick together, something like that. The locals we got com
ing from Bear Bones know the area and can fan out around the lake. Mitch and Ms. Vaughn must have decided on a different place than where he told Christine he’d beach the kayak so they could talk things out.”
“On a private little picnic?” Christine heard Vanessa whisper to Jonas behind her. “Talk things out, my foot!”
“Just don’t put your foot in your mouth,” he muttered back. “You’d better cooperate with all this and look like you mean it.”
Christine didn’t let on that she’d heard them. Spike was saying, “Mitch must of just pulled the kayak up on a stretch of beach where we haven’t spotted it yet, that’s all.”
The sound of vehicle engines and the blast of horns drew them all outside. At least forty people, nearly half the population of the nearby town of Bear Bones, piled out of pickup trucks or SUVs. Some wore backpacks; some carried rifles.
Christine went back inside quickly. She didn’t need their stares right now and even the sight of guns made her uneasy. Her stomach was tied in knots already. Lisa lost was one thing, but she couldn’t lose Mitch.
“Okay,” she heard Spike tell everyone in a booming voice from outside, “you all know what Mitch looks like, but the woman he’s with—Lisa Vaughn—is about five feet five, blond hair to her shoulders, slender, but athletic-looking, green eyes, real pretty face….”
Oh yes, Christine thought, a real pretty face all right. Obviously Mitch’s ideal, maybe Spike’s, too. She saw out the opposite set of lodge windows that Ginger had come back across the lake. She was not putting in at her usual spot but ran the prow of her old motorboat up on the shore farther down. Christine went out to fill her in. The two of them were going to hold the fort in case Mitch or Lisa came back or the sheriff or medical help needed to be summoned from Talkeetna.
Christine strode the path to the lake landing and hurried down to it.
“Any news yet?” Ginger asked as she tossed her little anchor on the pebbled shore. Like Spike, she was lanky and redheaded, but with gray eyes and a distant gaze that could really unsettle you. Sometimes she seemed to look past or through you. Even for backcountry Alaska, Ginger Jackson was as eccentric as they came, dressed in a combination of gypsy and frontier-woman clothes.
Ginger lived mostly hand to mouth. Besides baking for the lodge, she picked up random short-term jobs in Bear Bones and always helped Mitch with ziplining for his guests. Ginger’s brother, Spike, loved flying, but Ginger’s high-flying thrills came from zipping along on a steel cable through tall Sitka spruce. Christine admired Ginger’s independence. She’d turned down an offer of marriage from a guy because he insisted she move into town. Ginger wouldn’t accept anything from her big brother but the
firewood he cut for her baking and heating stoves for the cold months. She was even scrimping to save money to pay Spike for that, since the price of jet fuel was, literally, sky-high. Yet since Ginger’s mail came to the lodge, Christine knew that she received lots of high-end catalogs with all kinds of exotic luxury goods—her “dream mags,” she called them.
“We still don’t know anything,” Christine called to her, hurrying closer. “It’s like they vanished into thin air.”
“Maybe they just had things to settle and said the heck with everyone else. That’s what I’d of done. Did Mitch talk about her? I mean, we knew somebody threw somebody over, but I’ve learned never to hold people’s pasts against them.”
Christine wondered if she meant her own past. “No, he didn’t talk about her until just before they arrived,” she admitted, wishing Mitch had confided more to her. That was another thing she liked about Ginger—live and let live. But she didn’t like the way the woman was staring at her, still standing in her boat, hands on her hips, head tilted, almost as if she were accusing her of something. Christine had gone through enough of that.
“What?” she challenged Ginger.
“There!” Ginger pointed past her. So she wasn’t staring at her after all. “Maybe Mitch didn’t put the red kayak I saw here earlier into the lake. See? Someone shoved a kayak up or down here and to or from where? That ridge path above the lake and river?”
Christine turned and looked, then had to shade her eyes and stand back a bit to see what Ginger was pointing at. She gasped and scrambled up the bank toward the path with Ginger right behind her.
They looked at the path, then down it to the other side. Strewn there was the food and cooler Lisa had carried as well as the path of what could well be the kayak sliding down toward the river. A wolverine hunched there, too stubborn to move, bolting down the food, but that wasn’t what upset them.
“Mitch decided to take her white-water kayaking?” Ginger screeched. “Is he nuts? We gotta make folks search the river!”
“But this food strewn here…” Christine began, then stopped in midsentence. “Or maybe she just set the cooler down here and that wily wolverine opened it after they took off. But I can’t believe Mitch would do that.”
The wolverine hustled away as Ginger skidded off the path and looked downriver, shading her eyes with both hands. “No one. Nothing!” she shouted up over the river’s roar, but Christine was already running to tell Spike before the searchers set out on a wild-goose chase.
“Feel your way with your feet, one slow step at a time,” Mitch told Lisa as they edged into the cleft in the gorge, both facing the rock. “Don’t look down!”
“I won’t!” she vowed, but she already had. About twelve feet below, she had heard and seen white
water surging into the bottom of the cleft, then being sucked back out. She could almost feel it washing over her, like when she was in the river, or in her worst nightmares. But Mitch was just behind, talking to her, urging her on.
Because she could feel the firm rock under her, she was glad she was barefoot, even though she ached all over, including the soles of her feet. Words from her grandma Colleen’s favorite Psalm came to her:
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…
Mitch had said she should lead the way out because he needed not only to watch where they were going, but watch her. They’d abandoned the kayak. All their other goods were strapped to his back, but he wouldn’t let her carry one thing.
“You’re doing great,” he said. “We’re making good progress.”
“I’m shaking. It makes me feel as if the wall is,” she admitted as she tried to find handholds, yet not push away from the rock face so she tipped back. Their yellow brick road out of here was only about two feet wide in places. She knew she had to do this just right, because if he had to make a grab for her, they’d both bounce down into oblivion.