Down River (8 page)

C
hristine knew she didn’t need a key to get into Mitch’s suite, because, so far at least, he’d never locked it. She ducked inside and quietly closed the door. It was a long shot, but perhaps she’d find something here that hinted at what had happened, such as a note from Lisa Vaughn. She was getting desperate. She could not lose Mitch.

She scanned his small sitting area—ever neat and tidy—and moved quickly to the big rolltop desk that had been his uncle’s. She saw stacks of bills to pay, future reservations, some from Tokyo. Those guests would start arriving late next month. Though darkest winter was the best time for viewing the aurora borealis, it was possible to catch pale, wispy glimpses of its grandeur anytime soon.

Without going through his entire in and out baskets and desk drawers, she didn’t see anything unusual, such as a personal note. If she had time for a more thorough search, she’d go through all that later.

But there was a wadded up, printed e-mail in the
otherwise empty wastebasket. She picked it up, unwrinkled its violently twisted form and scanned it. She was sure it must be from Lisa and whatever it said had angered him.

But it was from his brother saying he was too busy to come this summer, and the kids would be in school in the fall, but he wished him the best in his “frontier adventure.” Then a final line that revealed so much. “After all, Uncle John left that place to you, not me.”

Christine sighed. Another family with damaged relationships as sad and bad as her marriage had been, as icy as the whiteout fogs in Fairbanks.

Mitch hardly ever talked about his brother, but he had his family’s photograph prominently displayed on the desktop. She saw it was now lying on its face as if he’d knocked it over, but she’d looked at it several times. An eight-by-ten in color of his surgeon brother, Brad, his pretty wife—another blonde, so maybe both Braxton boys liked blondes—and their two kids, a boy about ten and a girl about six. No doubt, Mitch, too, longed for a family. Well, Christine was never going to have that and maybe Mitch wouldn’t either.

She tiptoed into his bedroom, moving like a leaf on the forest floor. His bed was covered by a quilt in browns, muted blues and greens. The bed was carefully made, though she’d volunteered when she first came to make it every day. He’d told her she wasn’t a hotel maid but the lodge manager and chef, and that had given her an early glimpse into the heart of the man.

She scanned the top of his bureau, his bookshelves, the compartments built into the headboard of his bed. Why he slept in a king-size bed, she hadn’t asked, but maybe it was because he was restless at night, thrashed around a lot. Maybe like her, he had bad dreams.

The folklore of her people taught that each human being had a
joncha,
a secret identity linked to an animal the person could contact through dreams. When you discovered which
joncha
was yours, the old belief was that you could change into that animal at will, but were also plagued by its weaknesses.

Her
joncha
was the silent, stoic and observant wolverine. Though Spike and Mitch weren’t Yup’ik, she pictured Spike as the powerful but sometimes bumbling bear. Mitch Braxton was an eagle, wise and daring, but one who could be snared by wanting too much. She’d seen an eagle try to snatch a too-big salmon from the river and get pulled under, his talons caught in the flesh of the fish, the river pulling him down to destruction, just like Lisa Vaughn might have ruined his life—again.

She collapsed on the edge of the bed, put her face in her hands and sobbed. But did she hear footsteps? Could Mitch be back?

She bolted off the bed, nearly slamming into Spike as he came around the corner and looked in.

“What the hell are you doing in here!” he demanded, striding in and grabbing her hard by her shoulders, then pressing her between the wall and his
big body. She hit hard at his hands and kicked at his shin, though he barely budged. Memories of brutality, of beatings, roared at her.

“Don’t grab me like that!” she cried.

He released her immediately, but shouted, “You told me you weren’t sleeping with him!”

“Don’t shout. I’m the lodge manager, and I came in to see if he’d left any clues behind, that’s all.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“It wasn’t a question but an accusation. You think that of us, you ask him when he gets back!
Iah!
”

At first he seemed angry, but she saw realization dawn on his frowning face. “I—I didn’t mean to hurt you—or remind you of…him, your husband. It’s just—I lost my head. My temper. I won’t grab you like that again, I promise.”

Linking his fingers and putting both hands on top of his head, he leaned back against the door frame and stared up at the ceiling. “Sorry. I blurt things out. And I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“It’s all right—this time. We’re all on edge.”

“Truth is, I just checked Lisa Vaughn’s room.”

“Anything there?” she said, glad for the shift of subjects as she subtly smoothed the sleeves of her blouse he’d wrinkled.

“Her room’s a lot messier than here. Christine, I really am sorry,” he said, finally looking at her and folding his arms over his chest.

“I’m flattered you were upset and happy you can humble yourself to apologize.”

“It wasn’t personal—just…I gotta go. I’m taking the plane up again.”

“With Mrs. Bonner?”

“She’s like that bunny in the battery ads. Yeah, she insists on going, and they’re paying for the fuel again. They’re probably used to buying anything they want, but I still like both of them.” He lifted one hand and started for the door before turning back.

“I think,” he said, “after she fed my mushers, Ginger went to look for Mitch and Lisa over near her place again, even though the kayak obviously went into the river. She—when she gets something in her head, there’s no stopping her. Gotta go,” he repeated and hurried out.

Lisa told herself to breathe. In, out. Calm, steady. Just breathe.

But she could hardly stem her terror as she watched Mitch unhook the basket—thank God, it was on this side of the river—and climb into it. This was to be the test run, but she suddenly didn’t even want him to do that. What if it dumped him into the raging torrent? She couldn’t bear to lose him, her rescuer and ally. And her partner for what might turn out to be an attempted-murder investigation.

“Help me hold it steady until I let it go,” he told her. “Then stand way back. Don’t look down at the river. You do not have to look down.” Then, he added, so quietly she could hardly hear over the roar of the water, “How about a kiss for luck?”

He quickly kissed her cheek but then he molded his lips to hers with one hand behind her head to hold her to him. His mouth opened slightly, exciting, enticing. A jolt of power shot through her, nose to toes. The kiss made her feel she was in the basket with him, flying, looking down over a whirling vortex.

“Okay, get back now,” he said, freeing her. “And when I return, you may have to help me get the tram back up here, because it looks like the cable dips on this side a bit more than on the other. Watch how I use the pulleys to give a hand-over-hand pull up at the end of each side. Let go, get back! Here we go!”

We,
he said. As if they were indeed a team. She stood back, her hands pressed over her mouth and her spine pressed against the solid rock into which the cable had been grounded. Still, her legs trembled. She watched wide-eyed as he hunkered down a bit in the basket, edging it out over the void—and then let go of the pulley and flew, down, away, the hook screeching over the steel cable until the river devoured the sound.

He slowed in the sag of his steel lifeline, dipping to maybe twenty feet above the river. It seemed an eternity to her before the aluminum tram slowed as it started up the other side of the cable, where he had to use the pulleys.

Instead of going clear to the tower, he let go again and came flying back. On this side, he didn’t even have to pull himself up very far. When he was over
solid ground, she held the basket to stop its rocking. She smiled through her tears, and he gave a little cheer.

“Not much different from a roller-coaster ride at Disney World!” He exulted, looking like a boy who would love such a ride. “Your turn.”

The time had come to face her worst fears. She’d promised him, but she hadn’t looked down yet and now she would have to. No way could she make this trip with her eyes tightly shut.

Mitch clambered out.

“What’s downriver from here?” she blurted.

“Don’t start thinking too much. If you must know, miles away, massive Denali Park—eventually, the Bering Sea and Russia—okay? Just concentrate on the here and now. You’ll be fine.”

He lifted her up to swing her into the basket, but she held hard to him, her arms around his neck. She pressed her cheek to his despite the stubble of his beard.

“Mitch, if anything happens, I’m sorry about what I said about your family and your brother. I’m sorry I couldn’t change enough to move here with you.”

Holding her, he kissed her again, hard, a rotating, grinding kiss that she felt in her bruised lips and deep in her belly. “We’ll work everything out back at the lodge,” he told her, breathing hard in unison with her.

He put her down in the basket that reminded her of a big tin can.

“Kneel down and hang on,” he ordered as he shoved the basket away. “See you on the other side of this big river.”

“Mitch, I can’t—”

She wasn’t sure what she was going to say, but he gave a last little shove and the basket fell free of solid ground. She closed her eyes and let out a little scream as it careened away, faster, over the river that had almost killed her. Someone had wanted that, someone had tried that.

In the central sag of the cable, she imagined herself crashing into the current. She fought hard to keep from seeing Mommy and Jani disappearing into the depths again. Terrified she’d fall into the roaring foam, she gripped the sides of her little basket so hard her fingers went numb.

Then the basket slowed. What if it stopped, dangling her over the water so Mitch had to come across it hand over hand to save her?

She opened her eyes and saw she was almost at the tower on the far side.
Don’t look down,
she told herself in a frenzied little mantra.
Don’t look down into that screaming white water.

Looking up at the cable line, she feared it would snap, but it held. Shaking hard in the swaying basket, she reached up and worked the pulley the way she’d seen him do it. Yes! Yes, she was over land, but what if this thing took off before she was out? What if it didn’t get back to bring Mitch over and she had to walk out of here alone? He’d said there was an access
road if you just walked south, but she was terrible at directions and she’d be so alone in all this vastness. And with the roar of the river, they wouldn’t even be able to shout back and forth across it.

But as she got out and felt dry, firm rock under her feet again, feet still covered with the shoes Mitch had made for her, she heard an inner voice clearly say,
You can do whatever you have to.

Shivers shot through her. It wasn’t her mother’s voice that she so often tried to remember. It wasn’t her psychiatrist’s from long ago. It wasn’t even Mitch’s, though it almost could have been. Perhaps not even the Lord God’s or some kind of guardian angel’s. It was almost as if this vast, powerful land had spoken to her, taught her that she could survive despite her fear of the raging torrent of troubles or the unknown side of some deep, dark chasm.

As she waved across to Mitch and shoved the basket out so it would return for him, she made a vow. No matter what, with his help, she was going to find out who had tried to take her life and why.

“T
hanks for your help!” Mitch told Gus Majors as he drove them onto the lodge property in his rattle-trap pickup. Gus was a big bear of a man, and Lisa was squeezed in between them. The pickup was old enough that it didn’t have seat belts, or else Gus had ripped them out.

Gus ran the hunting supply and hardware store called Whatever in Bear Bones, and did taxidermy work on the side. Like Spike, he ran a team of sled dogs. Many Alaskans held numerous jobs to survive. Like some other local guys, Gus had never married—literally not enough women to go around. He’d tried to court Ginger for a while, which Mitch figured took nerves of steel, but nothing had come of it. As a matter of fact, Mitch had heard the two former lovebirds had had a shouting match in town at the Wolfin’ Café a few days ago.

“We really owe you, Gus,” Mitch added.

“Naw, glad me and old Betsy was comin’ down the road. Bad huntin’ for moose, but good for lost neigh
bors, eh?” Gus said with a slap at his steering wheel and a hearty guffaw. “You’d a done the same for me, Mitch.”

With a honk-honk of Betsy’s horn, Gus hit the brakes in front of the lodge, and the three of them piled out.

“Glad to meet you, too, Missy,” Gus added, snatching off his Yukon Quest ball cap when Mitch helped Lisa down.

Mitch waited for her to correct Gus. Though he called most women Missy, she’d probably think he’d forgotten or screwed up her name. She’d had a habit of correcting people’s pronunciation in practice sessions before they went on the witness stand, when Mitch had always thought they should just be themselves. But now, to his surprise, she gave Gus a hug.

“Mitch saved my life,” she told him, “but you saved us from a long trek back, Gus. I’m glad to meet you, too, and you’re invited to the lodge, for dinner on me, before we leave.”

“Just better not have Ginger there, too, then,” he said, “because—”

He stopped mid-sentence as Christine tore out of the lodge.

“Thank God, thank God!” she cried, and hugged Mitch hard before holding him at arm’s length. “
Iah!
What happened?” she asked, staring over his shoulder at Lisa before looking back to him.

“
Cu’paq,
thanks for holding down the fort.”

“We were worried to death. We’ve even got Denali
park rangers looking for you way downriver. Spike’s been up a couple of times with Mrs. Bonner, and they just got back. I’ll go tell them….”

She turned and ran for the lake.

“Best be goin’,” Gus said, shaking Mitch’s hand and patting Lisa on the shoulder. “Now don’t you think nothin’ of it—all in a day’s work ’round here. Right, Mitch?”

They waved to him as his truck chugged away. Jonas and Vanessa barreled out of the lodge with a beaming Graham Bonner right behind. Spike and Ellie came running from the lake, with the little woman in tears but managing to keep up with Spike’s long strides. Spike slapped Mitch on the back, and Ellie hugged Lisa, then him. Mitch noted Ginger kind of edging around the corner of the lodge, hanging back, watching rather than joining the party. Either she’d seen Gus here or just didn’t want to get in the middle of all the hoopla. She seemed a sort of split personality at times—sometimes private, other times almost pushy.

Everyone spoke at once, asked a hundred questions, but always the big one. “What happened?”

“Lisa?” Mitch said, turning to her.

“Things are really fuzzy,” she told them, as everyone hushed. “Besides the shock of the icy river, I must have hit my head at some point, because I can’t recall exactly what happened. It may come back to me. Some things have. Right now I only know that Mitch got in a kayak and rescued me at this end of
the gorge. I had hypothermia but he saved my life by getting me warm again.”

Mitch noted the toss of Vanessa’s head and the roll of her eyes. She glared at Lisa before she managed a merely concerned expression. Why did that woman always suspect the worst? Could she still be fuming that he and Lisa had managed a secret relationship? Just a couple of months before he had started dating Lisa, Vanessa had aggressively propositioned him at a New Year’s Eve party, and he’d turned her down. Jealousy was always a powerful motive for revenge. Maybe, in this case, exacerbated by the fact the Bonners had forgiven him and Lisa. Maybe Vanessa could not stand for Lisa to best her again if she got senior partner.

Lisa was winding down her succinct explanation. “We had to hike out through the swampy muskeg to dry tundra and then to a spot we could cross the river to the access road where Gus Majors picked us up.”

“Right.” Mitch backed up the story they’d decided on. “I first spotted her clinging to a rock near here—I’ll point out which one later. I moved the kayak from the lake to the river and went after her, even when she got swept farther away. We’ve had a real adventure hiking out, but we’re both exhausted, aching and starved—”

“But if she hit her head and can’t recall, she’ll need a doctor,” Ellie said, wringing her hands. “Being battered in that river, a thorough checkup is in order. She’s all black and blue—as if she’s been beaten.”

Mitch and Christine exchanged a quick look as Lisa insisted, “I’m fine now, really. Mitch made sure I didn’t have a concussion. I think it might just be the shock of that cold water that’s jumbled my memory for now. I’m even getting used to walking off my aches and pains.”

“Walking all that way in those shoes?” Vanessa asked, pointing. Everyone looked down at the beat-up, makeshift padded cloth and duct tape shoes Mitch had made for her.

“Yes,” Lisa said, tossing her head so her already wild hair flew up in the breeze behind her, making it look as if she was in an electromagnetic field. “Ironically, Mitch made them for me from a life preserver. Alaskan wilderness chic, I think.”

“My shoes were too big for her, so we had no choice,” he explained as he took her elbow, and they started toward the lodge.

“All she’s been through,” Graham said, keeping up, “makes me think she has the stamina and courage to fill your shoes at the firm. Lisa, if you can’t take part in the other activities we have planned, I won’t hold it against you.”

She turned back to face him and Ellie. “Despite what’s happened, I’m blessed to be alive and well. But I want to be a part of things here. Unless I have to get back in that rough river—”

“No one does,” Mitch cut in, “because when we get to our river day, we’re going way upstream where it’s a lot calmer, and we’re going in a big multiperson raft—and not until the very last event.”

Mitch heard Jonas mutter something to Vanessa but he couldn’t catch it.

“Graham,” Mitch told his former mentor, “we’ve got a few days left before you leave, so how about full steam ahead with our plans? That is, after a hot meal, a good soak in the hot tub and some sleep?”

“We never gave up on either of you,” Graham said as he walked between Mitch and Lisa with his hands on their shoulders and the others scurrying to keep up. “And it looks like you’ve worked together as a team again, just as you did at the firm.”

Mitch saw Vanessa’s frown deepen, and she elbowed Jonas, who just shook his head. Christine ran past them, hopefully to get some food out. And so, Mitch thought, unless Lisa really did hit her head and hallucinate being pushed into that violent river, building their case against someone here had begun.

As she stood under a pounding, hot shower, Lisa tried to calculate the time they’d been gone. It seemed to have both stood still and flown while she and Mitch had been in the wilds. Besides, she needed to think of something else besides this water sluicing over her, however good it felt. She had to establish a timeline, so she could track everyone’s moves back here and eventually test their alibis. Hopefully with Mitch’s help.

The Bonner party had arrived at the lodge on Tuesday and she’d been pushed into the river the next day, late afternoon. The fact that the sun never
really set had made it seem as if they’d been gone for only one long day, despite the fact she and Mitch had huddled together in that little tent twice.

The first night had passed while they had edged away from the river and seen that glorious sunset and hiked to the blueberry bush and gotten some rest. Then only one more long, light-filled day had passed before they finally crossed the river at the gauging station. It was now the second night. She was so tired and full of Christine’s good food, her body was aching for bed. Yet her mind was still alert. Coffee and chocolate always got to her like that, but her anger over what had happened—and the panic someone might try to harm her again—beat any other stimulant, however exhausted her body was.

Could Vanessa and Jonas be somehow working together? They had seemed to be sticking tight when everyone had greeted them. But they, too, were rivals, so why would they be in collusion? Besides, surely they were smart enough to know that once a criminal told someone of the crime, or had someone abetting it, secrets would get out.
Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead,
as the old saying went.

Besides, she couldn’t just suspect the two obvious people. Christine seemed possessive of Mitch and moved on deer’s feet. If anyone could have sneaked up behind her on the ridge path, it could have been her, because the woman knew she was there then. Spike could also resent her. He might be afraid she’d hurt someone he obviously looked up to. Perhaps he
was afraid that if she and Mitch reconciled, she’d get him to move back to Florida. She had to learn more about his staff from Mitch, if he wouldn’t just defend them.

She finally climbed out of the shower and toweled off. She’d shampooed her hair so she blasted it with the blow-dryer, still thinking, agonizing. Yes, this twilight—she couldn’t think of it as night—must be the end of Thursday, and they weren’t supposed to leave until next Tuesday morning, so she and Mitch had four full days. Graham had called the time left a “few days.” She had to move quickly, not waste even one day recovering. It was high time to find a killer who now might want to correct the problem of her surviving the river.

Though the bed beckoned, Lisa pulled on her bathing suit—she’d looked like one big bruise in the steamy bathroom mirror—because she knew Mitch was going to soak in the lodge’s large outdoor hot tub and she needed to talk to him. She didn’t want anyone—including him—to see her knocking on his bedroom door. If others were in the spa, it would just have to wait. Taking a fresh towel and donning the thick, white terry-cloth robe the lodge provided, she went out and down the hall.

Through the next room’s closed door, Lisa could hear Vanessa talking, but to whom? Cell phones didn’t work here, and no room had phones, though, ironically, since the great room downstairs was equipped with Direct TV, the guest rooms offered
Internet service. Could Jonas be in there with Vanessa?

If she had to pick one or the other as her number-one suspect, she’d choose Vanessa, but Jonas was desperate for the promotion because of his financial obligations with his sick son. He didn’t know it, but she’d seen him playing online poker on his laptop one time when she went into his office to ask him a question. And she’d accidentally taken a call for him once from a collection agency. So how desperate was he to make senior partner? Did he see her and not Vanessa as the front-runner?

She stopped in the hall, tempted to put her ear to Vanessa’s door, but then realized she was not talking to someone, but chanting some hip-hop song in Spanish. The woman who had clawed her way up from a Miami
barrio
was proud of being fluent in her native language—such a help in a South Florida law firm—but not proud of the tough past she tried to hide. Her father was in prison, and she was twice divorced before she was thirty. Talk about ambitious men having starter and trophy marriages on their way to the top—don’t mess with Vanessa Guerena and, unless you’re a useful or wealthy man, get out of her way!

Lisa went downstairs and out onto the stone-flagged patio that overlooked the lake. It was under the wooden deck above, which was really on the first floor, for the land sloped down to the dock. She could see Spike’s bright red plane tied up there now instead
of at the far end of the lake. With her flip-flops making a gentle slap-slap sound, she walked past the sauna. It looked like a small log cabin, off a ways by itself, with its wood burner standing outside it. She knew how good a sauna would feel, but Mitch was in the spa, so that’s where she was going. She passed the stone barbecue and a bonfire pit on the way to the big hot tub Mitch was soaking in. Though he had not turned on the overhead light, she could see he was alone.

Like an emerald set in azure mist, the water, lit from below, bubbled and steamed around him. She hesitated. The roiling water produced roiling foam. For one moment, her waking nightmare leaped at her—her mother’s face staring upward from fierce water, haunting her head and heart. Lisa blinked to clear the vision.

Eyes closed, Mitch was leaning back against the side but looked back to reach for a plastic glass and saw her. He seemed surprised, but he’d mentioned it before and repeated to her quietly after dinner that he’d be here.

“One of the perks of civilization,” he said and stood to lift a hand to help her down the steps. Water slicked over his muscular shoulders and chest. Surely he wore a swimsuit in there. She shed her towel on the bench where he’d put his and gave him her hand to step down into the warm water. The black bikini she wore seemed out of place here in the Alaskan wilds. She saw—and felt—his eyes on her, riveted.

“Did you think I’d stay out of anything larger than a bathtub?” she tried to kid him, but her voice sounded shaky.

“No, I just knew you were exhausted out of your mind.”

“I am, and you must be, too, but that doesn’t mean I can sleep. But you don’t think I’m out of my mind, or you wouldn’t have agreed to help me,” she said, settling into the warm foam, clear up to her shoulders. They had things to decide and do, so she had to keep on track.

It was a big hot tub, but she sat close so they could talk. She hoped the others wouldn’t be showing up. From her bedroom window, she’d seen Vanessa, Jonas and Graham use it the night they arrived. So, she encouraged herself, since she was remembering all sorts of details, surely she was correctly recalling being pushed into the river.