"S

"Anything looks tiny compared to Fort Lauderdale," Lisa said, feeling a strange urge to defend this town she'd never seen. But everything about Vanessa made her want to argue with her lately. Should she pay attention to her woman's intuition that Vanessa was the one she should suspect of much worse than big-city snobbery?

Granted, Bear Bones wasn't much to look at. About one block long, facing both sides of a narrow two-lane road, it didn't even have a streetlight or stop-light. There was a gas station with a big sign that read Bulk Fuel and Propane. The Wolfin' Cafe seemed to hold center stage. A sawmill, the "Homesteaders Cemetery," a Methodist chapel, and a couple of houses straggled beyond the cluster of commercial establishments. The American flag and Alaska state flag flew from more poles than there were stores.

Lisa saw one sign that read Lucy's Deli/Pizza. So did the Duck Lake Lodge denizens ever go out or send out for pizza? There was the Kleen-It Laundromat, the Gold Rush Saloon with swinging doors painted on its real wooden doors, and a place called Trader Dan's with a weather-beaten sign that advertised Groceries And Drugs For Sale. Not a pharmacy, not a drugstore, just drugs. South Floridians would get a laugh out of that--and it looked as if Vanessa was.

"It's not as bare-bones as it looks," Mitch told them. "The post office and lending library are in the back of the Community Hall, down there, the same place they have poker and bingo nights. Bear Bones serves its purpose and has a definite charm," he added as he pulled up in front of Gus Majors' store, where the large sign read:

WHATEVER: HUNTING SUPPLIES, TAXIDERMY, CHAINSAW REPAIR, ECT.

"I guess that last part is supposed to be ETC.," Vanessa said. "Actually, the town reminds me of a set from one of those old Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns."

"I'm impressed at the breadth of your knowledge and honored you're comparing Bear Bones to Italy," Mitch countered.

Lisa could tell that Vanessa's attitude was getting to him.

"Eastwood was big with someone I dated briefly," Vanessa said as they got out. "A cardiac surgeon who tried to operate on my heart, if you know what I mean. So--those little gift shops you mentioned are in the fronts of houses down that way? I hope they have postcards, because I know a lot of people who knew the Mitchell Braxton who won't believe this is your closest town."

"Talkeetna, where we're heading this weekend, is 'the big city,' so save your real shopping and comments for that," Mitch said. "Besides, can you get out of your car in Lauderdale or Miami and leave it unlocked like this? Lisa, what do you think?"

"I think it's the most real place I've been in a long time. No pretense, no false fronts, no hype--unlike a lot of places and people I know from what we like to call civilization."

Her eyes met Mitch's and held. He nodded. Vanessa gave a little snort. "Meaning something deep and dark, like a slap at me?" she challenged.

"Of course not," Lisa told her. "Why are you so thin-skinned lately when--"

Lisa's urge to tell Vanessa off was waylaid by Gus Majors barreling out the front door of his shop, shouting, "Glad to see you two river rats!"

He slapped Mitch's shoulder and give Lisa a quick, one-armed hug. Vanessa looked as if the largest animal in the zoo had just gotten loose from its cage.

"Gus," Mitch said, "how's this evening for dinner at the lodge? About six-thirty? Christine's getting all the fixings together for aurora borealis ice cream for dessert."

"On one condition--same one I mentioned before. If Ginger's there, I'll take a rain check, 'cause after seeing you two yesterday, I got to thinkin' about that showdown her and I had at the Wolfin' Cafe. So just a while ago I drove way round the lake to make it up to her. Then we got ourselves into another fuss, and I said the hell with her. You sure she won't be there?"

"She drops her bakery goods off late afternoon--like right about now," Mitch said, frowning at his watch, "but doesn't stay for dinner when we have guests. And I'd like you to meet one of them. Vanessa Guerena, this is Gus Majors, jack-of-all-trades, master of only one--big talk."

"Pleased to meet you, ma'am," Gus said as Vanessa nodded but didn't extend her hand. "Well, I'm working on a moose head, so got to get back to it, but I'll be there tonight. Thanks for the invite!" he said over his big shoulder as he went back inside.

After Mitch went off to do his errands, Vanessa turned to Lisa. "So, before the moose-head man came out and was invited to dinner at the lodge, were you going to get into a fuss with me--to say the hell with me, to use your friend's patois?"

Lisa turned to face her on the sidewalk. "My grandmother used to quote the Bible a lot, and I can remember her saying, 'I have learned in whatever state I am to be content.' You should work on that, Vanessa. Just appreciate being someplace different while you're here--see the good side of th--"

"'In whatever state'? Well I don't like the state of Alaska I'm in, and--Mitch Braxton or not--I'm shocked you do, especially after you could have drowned and frozen solid in that river! The senior partnership is worth a lot, but this place is not only laughable," she said, flinging her arm at the town, "but deadly. You could have been killed in that river, probably more than once."

They glared at each other before Vanessa stalked away toward a house that had a swinging sign that said Alaska Gifts. The last few words of Vanessa's tirade still hung between them as if it echoed off the sign, the buildings and mountains. She hadn't said that Lisa could have died in the river, but could have been killed. Lisa realized Vanessa had said nothing to really implicate herself, yet it seemed she had made not only a subtle confession, but a possible threat.

"I hope Gus leaves right after the dessert," Christine whispered to Mitch as she stood back to watch Gus cranking the homemade ice-cream maker on the dining room table. After taking brief stints turning the dasher, their guests had relocated to two facing leather couches and a couple of chairs in front of the low-burning fire.

She kept her voice low. "Ginger sent a note back to me with Vanessa after her visit. She wrote she's been so busy with her guests today--Mrs. Bonner, Gus and Vanessa--that she's bringing the breakfast goodies here later. She didn't get them all done. And she's been baking and stockpiling things to sell at her booth at the Mountain Mother Festival this weekend. I'm not to tell Spike, but she wants to pay him for all the wood he cuts for her stoves."

"I'll try to keep an eye out and ear cocked for Ginger's boat, then give Gus a heads-up if it comes to that. We do not need an episode of that soap opera of yours played out here--what's it called?"

"One Life to Live."

"Yeah, well, we've got enough of a soap opera going on here right now. You all set to back me up on these aurora borealis stories for everyone?"

Although Christine never liked to be center stage, each time Mitch had a group here, they served this vanilla ice cream with blueberries and cranberries swirled through it and gave a brief talk about the aurora borealis.

"Sure," she said. "You start while I stir in the fruit and dish it up, and I'll chime in later."

"While you're all enjoying the aurora borealis ice cream Christine is dishing up," Mitch said, raising his voice so everyone could hear and walking over to sit in a chair facing the hearth, "we'd like to tell you some things about our famed northern lights. Needless to say, as attractive as the ice cream is, the swirl of colors in it doesn't do the real thing justice. You're here about the time we might begin to glimpse them, and it's nice to see them in the milder temps of autumn, because it's down-to-the-bone cold when they are usually seen dancing across the sky. Viewing is best between midnight and three a.m. and can go until late March. Since I used to visit my uncle here during my summer vacations, I was totally blown away the first time I saw them in the cold--just this past winter."

"I've seen pictures of them, even moving ones," Mrs. Bonner said, "but I'm sure those don't do them justice either."

"Nothing but the naked eye does," Mitch said. "Even though the lights are associated with Alaska, they are a northern hemisphere phenomenon. The Scandanavians used to associate the light with the Valkyries riding down to do battle from the skies. Some biblical scholars think the heavenly wheel Ezekial saw in the Old Testament was the northern lights, which do dip down to the south once in a rare while. The name aurora borealis comes from two Latin words. Aurora was the Roman goddess of the dawn and Borealis was the god of the north wind."

"That's some Latin I never learned in law school," Jonas said as Christine stirred the fruit into the ice cream and Gus joined the group, standing behind Jonas's chair.

Christine had noticed Jonas was walking with a slight limp since his sledding accident, but only sometimes. Spike was still worried Jonas might sue, and she knew how that fear felt. Clay's father had not only banished her from the Kagak family, but had threatened to bring a civil suit against her since she'd escaped punishment for the criminal charge. But that had just been talk. He didn't want the names Kagak or Yup'ik "shamed in the papers" anymore, as he put it. She should assure Spike that it would come to nothing. Maybe she'd even open up to him about her own situation some.

"So what really makes the northern lights?" Jonas was asking.

"Scientists say it's like a solar wind, carrying protons and electrons streaming out from the sun--bands of energy," Mitch explained, gesturing. "The earth's atmospheric gasses collide with the particles, and they explode and glow in different colors. The northern lights are actually there all the time, but much of the year, the sun blocks them out. As a former lawyer, I first thought of it as someone who is guilty of something--hiding something--who manages to keep his or her true intentions invisible, but they remain, and will eventually be found out."

Christine looked up from serving their guests as Vanessa and Lisa took dishes of ice cream from her tray. Mitch had never said that before to a group. Gus and Mitch took the last two bowls from the tray. Funny, but almost everyone was frowning and looking intently down at their ice cream, except for Lisa and Mitch, who were staring at everyone. So what was going on here? She had to ask Mitch. Iah, had he meant more by "a soap opera" than she suspected?

On the way back to the kitchen with the empty tray, Christine strode past the bubble window and looked down the length of the lake. No Ginger yet. "Christine," Mitch said, "can you share some of the local folklore about Alaska's version of sky lights?"

She walked back toward the group. Lisa made space for her on one sofa by moving closer to Gus, so Christine sat there, smoothing her long denim skirt over her knees. "In the old days," she began, "people in these parts believed you must respect the spirits of the sky so they wouldn't be harmful. They believed the lights are departed souls, playing up there, happy people."

"Kind of like heaven," Gus put in.

"Right," she said. "Alaskan native people associate the aurora with death. One belief of the Athabascans--they were the language group my people descended from--was that through the lights in the sky, the spirits of the dead watch over us and send us messages. And that chosen ones could see the faces of the dead through their dreams."

"See their faces of the dead through dreams?" Lisa asked.

Christine nodded. Lisa looked pale, her hand halfway to her dish, her spoon suspended in midair.

"And one group believes when the aurora borealis falls," Christine went on, "when it runs too close to man, the human brain goes mad and man is seized by the heart and killed. So, yes, to some the aurora used to mean happy heaven unless it got too close, then murder to others."

Christine saw Lisa shudder. She almost put her hand out to the woman's arm to comfort her. It was silent in the room, but for the ever-present distant rumble of the river. She still didn't hear the put-put of Ginger's motorboat.

"Well, I wish we could see the lights." Mrs. Bonner broke the silence. "We'll just have to come back another time, Graham. It will give me a good excuse to buy a fur-lined parka."

"It's something to see, all right," Gus said.

Christine had learned a lot more about their guests from the way they had treated Gus tonight. The Bonners were kind and courteous, Jonas off base by suggesting to Gus he go online to find a mail-order bride, Vanessa obviously annoyed he was here, but trying not to let the Bonners see that side of her, and Lisa attempting to make him feel at ease.

When Lisa helped collect the dishes and brought them to the table, Christine asked, "Are you feeling all right?"

"Yes, I'm fine. The ice cream was great and the folklore, too. Why do you keep looking out the window?"

"Since Gus is here, I'm glad Ginger's late, but it's not like her."

"I was going to go see her tomorrow morning. I could take the rowboat and go now. It's still plenty light. Wish I'd catch a glimpse of the aurora."

"I'd go with you, but I've got to clean up here. See what Mitch says. He won't let you go alone."

"I'll just see if Vanessa will go with me. We have some unfinished conversation, and she knows the way since she was just there. But yes, if Vanessa will go, too, I'll tell Mitch where we're going."

Christine liked Lisa's attitude. Never let a man really rule the roost, but listen to his advice--if it wasn't shouted at you in a drunken rage, that is. But she didn't intend to let her softer feelings for this woman keep her from doing whatever she must to protect Mitch and this haven he had made for her.

"So," Lisa said to Vanessa as she rowed them across the lake, "wasn't that interesting about the aurora?" Vanessa had been willing to come with her, once Lisa had promised she'd handle the oars. Mitch thought it was fine since he and Jonas were sitting on the patio and he had binoculars to keep an eye on them clear across the lake. Lisa figured she'd have to ask Ginger a couple of questions if she could get her away from Vanessa for a minute. As they crossed the water, a fitful breeze started up to ruffle the lake.

"Primitive beliefs are always interesting," Vanessa said, trailing a hand in the water, "but both Christine and Mitch kind of overdid it with the dramatics--him comparing the lights to guilty people hiding something and her with that death-in-the-sky stuff. You'd think we were all sitting around some campfire telling chainsaw-murder or ghost stories. By the way, good old Gus sharpens chainsaws for a living--did you know that? Keep an eye on him if there's some massacre up here."

Lisa narrowed her eyes and pulled harder on the oars. Once again, was Vanessa just mouthing off because of her disdain for this backwoods place, or was there something hidden in her language? Subtle threats? Freudian slips? Lisa hoped she wasn't back to being just plain paranoid, slipping back into her old fears where her nightmares used to merge with reality.

She was rowing into small waves now, but at least it would be easier going home--back to the lodge, that is. They would volunteer to take Ginger's breakfast goods back for her, if that would help. If she could get Vanessa to carry some things to this boat, she'd have a moment alone with Ginger.

"So," Lisa said to try another topic, "what did you find interesting about Ginger when you visited her earlier?"

"Ellie came back all enamored of how quaint her place was, but it's a log cabin, for heaven's sake. Young Abe Lincoln would have been happy there."

"And you've never seen someone living in such primitive conditions?"

"Is that a comment about my past?"

"Vanessa, get over it. I am not attacking you, just defending Ginger."

"These people are all eccentrics here. It wouldn't hurt them to be a little more...more..."

"Modern?"

"Mainstream. Talk about Clint Eastwood's old westerns. Ginger and probably others are living it. Sourdough bread starter rising in big bowls, not only a Ben Franklin potbellied stove, but a wood-burning cookstove. See that smoke coming out of the chimney there?"

Lisa turned around and looked in the direction they were going. Yes, a plume of smoke rose from a line of tall Sitka spruce where Vanessa pointed. And aloft, far above that, where she'd love to see the aurora lights, at least three huge raptors soared on the thermals. She turned around and pulled harder against the rising wind and waves now showing wisps of whitecaps.

They could see Ginger's motorboat bobbing, tied to the short dock, one that could be rolled out of the water when the lake iced up. Spike's plane was tied up at the very end of that dock. Ginger wasn't in sight unless the plane hid her. Lisa put their boat in on the other side of the dock, across from the empty motorboat. Vanessa finally did something helpful by getting out and tying the rope from the prow around a metal post.

Lisa climbed out, and they both looked down into Ginger's boat. They must have caught her in the middle of loading. Two plastic-covered trays of baked goods were in the bottom of the boat, with probably more to come.

"She's obviously just running late," Vanessa said, starting up the dock, with Lisa behind her, "but what does it matter since it's light so late? She could bring that breakfast stuff over in a couple of hours with no problem. Oh, yeah, you asked what I found most interesting about Ginger Jackson? She's living in the past except for one thing. She's got mail-order catalogs all over the place, I kid you not."

"I doubt if she shops online, unless she uses the Internet at the lodge, but maybe she shops by mail."

"The point is they are luxe catalogs, Lisa. Neiman Marcus, Saks, Nordstrom, Dean and Deluca--I don't know what else, but there's not one thing in sight to say she ever buys from them." She cupped her hands around her mouth and called, "Hey, Ginger! Ginger! Christine sent us over to see if you need any help with the bakery things for breakfast."

Lisa saw the cabin was shaped similar to Spike's but was a bit smaller. Spike had all the modern conveniences, but this definitely seemed more primitive. A small shed, also of logs, was just beyond the back corner. "She doesn't use an outhouse, does she?" Lisa whispered as they went up onto the porch.

"Thank heavens, it's not that bad. Ellie said she has a composting toilet just like the ones at the lodge. Leave it to Ellie to have to use the ladies' room while she was here. I'm pretty sure she ordered a lot of stuff from Ginger. I saw she took a couple of hundred dollars with her, no less, but maybe some of it was charity. You know bleeding-heart Ellie--excuse me, I mean philanthropist and humanitarian."

"Ginger!" Lisa called out, choosing to ignore Vanessa's subtle dig at Ellie. Vanessa sounded bitter about everything lately. So was that a mere step away from actually doing something rash?

They peeked in the two windows fronting the lake. The cabin itself couldn't be seen from the lodge, but it wasn't set too far back in the trees. Lisa realized she'd feel a whole lot better knowing Mitch could see them, even at a distance.

No sound. No Ginger. This would alarm everyone at the lodge. They'd have to go back, then send Spike or Mitch over. A winding road made a long drive from the lodge, but at least it was accessible. Vanessa had said Ginger didn't drive and relied on Spike's plane to land on the river or ice to keep her supplied in the winter. Lisa shuddered as if a cold breeze had hit her. The trees were shifting.

The door wasn't locked so they went in. "Ginger?" Lisa called. The main room smelled wonderfully of baked goods, yeasty and rich. Lisa recalled coming home from school, when Grandma always had milk and some treat waiting for her. They saw many items--even loaves of bread--laid out on the table, nicely wrapped in colored cellophane and labeled.

"This can't all be for the lodge breakfast," Vanessa said.

"Mitch told me she's been baking for that Mountain Mother Festival we're going to in Talkeetna--to sell things there."

"See what I mean about the catalogs?" Vanessa asked, pointing to one open on the end of the table as if Ginger had just left the room for a moment. "Look, she's even circled some things in red pen--luxury linen sheets and down pillows at...two hundred bucks a crack, no less. Talk about fantasy island!"

They looked in the bedroom, even under the bed and in the closet, then in the bathroom. "So, where's the phone?" Lisa asked. "Maybe we should call the lodge."

"No phone. I'm telling you, we're back to pioneer days here. She has what she calls a root garden in a clearing she insisted on showing me. I'll just look to be sure she's not there. You check the shed, and I'll meet you at the boat, pronto. Actually, with this wind kicking up, I'm not sure I tied our boat that tight and we don't need Ginger's pulling away from the dock."

"All right," Lisa said, then realized she'd broken her promise to Mitch not to be alone. She hurried to the shed, fully expecting it to be unlocked. It was. Holding her breath, standing back a ways, she pulled the door open. She saw a snowmobile that must get Ginger around in the winter. Also rakes, hoes, spades--and in plastic bins, stacks and stacks of more catalogs. Those reminded Lisa of the legal briefs piled up on her desk when she was a lowly associate.

Shaking her head, she closed the door and hurried down to the lake to check the boat lines and turn their prow outward. Yes, it was going to be much easier rowing back with the wind. They had to hurry, get help to search for Ginger. Was this the way people had panicked when they realized she and Mitch were missing? So much for her big question for Ginger. She'd wanted to ask if she'd seen anything strange the day she was pushed, someone other than her or Mitch walking the ridge path.

Lisa knelt on the shifting dock to turn their rowboat prow out, then refastened its rope and moved across the dock to be sure Ginger's motorboat was fastened securely. It had pulled away a bit. Should she take the baked goods out, in case it rained or water from the waves splashed in?

The motorboat bumped the dock, then shifted away from it. Lisa heaved a sigh of relief when she saw Vanessa come running toward the dock, yelling, "Didn't see her!"

Lisa looked down to try to hold Ginger's boat steady while she tightened its tie to the dock. She saw the anchor chain was over the side, so at least it wasn't going to drift away even if the rope loosened.

And then, below the surface, she glimpsed what at first she thought was her own reflection, broken by the waves.

A scream shredded the air--her scream. Through the shifting, swirling water etched by foam, her mother's face stared up at her, hair waving, hand bobbing and beckoning, green eyes wide, mouth moving to say, "Come to me, Lisa, come to me..."

L

"What is it?" Vanessa shouted as she ran down the dock. Wordlessly, Lisa pointed into the water. Vanessa bent down to look and gasped. "Should we pull her up?" she choked out as she fell to her knees beside Lisa.

"Accident? Crime scene? We can't tamper..." Lisa muttered.

"Right. Maybe the authorities can glean something from this, but to leave her in the lake...I can't believe I just saw her earlier today. Poor Spike. We have to get help. One of us has to stay here and the other get help even if Mitch said we should stick together."

"I--I only screamed because it was such a shock."

"Lisa, you were screaming for your mother!"

"I was not!" she insisted, but it was no time to argue. She dragged her gaze from Ginger's face. "I think I know a way we don't have to leave her and can get them here." At least she was thinking clearly now. Yes, she had a plan.

"Like what? Smoke signals from the chimney? We can't just gesture from the end of the dock, because their view of us is blocked by the plane," Vanessa pointed out.

"When we were in the wilds, Mitch told me the sign for getting help. I just need to get up on the plane."

"On it? You might fall in, too. Ginger must have slipped and hit her head while she was loading her boat. But the way she's still moving--eyes open--it's horrible."

Determined to make up for her initial reaction--had she screamed for her mother, because how could Vanessa have made that up?--Lisa stood on shaking legs and walked to the end of the dock. The plane was bobbing more than ever, but if she was careful, she could step onto a pontoon and get a handhold near the door and climb. Besides, she had to prove to herself she was not afraid of falling into water. After her nearly fatal river ride, it was like getting back on a horse. She'd swum in the ocean after her family died. She had to do this now.

She leaped onto the nearest pontoon of Spike's plane and grabbed a door handle. It was already a rocky ride. She couldn't believe this so-called bonding experience the Bonners had planned. First, someone pushed her in the river, then Jonas fell off the sled, but this--this muted all that by comparison, though she herself could very well have been the corpse floating faceup in the water.

She began to tremble, but she started to climb. The wing was supported by a metal strut. She stepped onto that and grasped the edge of the wing. She shifted her weight and clung to the body of the plane. With one foot on the strut, she belly-crawled up onto the nose near the outside of the windshield, holding on by grabbing the ridge that held the recessed wipers. The plane's metallic finish was sleek and cold. She slipped, hitting her chin so hard she bit her tongue and tasted bitter blood.

Blood, bruises, death by drowning. It would have been enough to make her flee this rugged land, but now something inside her had changed. The challenge of it spurred her on.

She felt almost nauseous--from the rocking or from her grim discovery in the lake--but she'd have to stand to be sure she was seen. What if they weren't watching right now? She had to hold the position with both arms raised in a V, as Mitch had said. Two arms up means: need help. Like a baby raising its arms to its mother--pick me up and hold me. Mother, holding little Lani in her arms...No, don't think of that again. One arm up meant no help needed, like a wave goodbye.

"Lisa, be careful!" Vanessa shouted, still kneeling on the dock above where Ginger had gone in. Fallen in? Pushed in? By whom? Maybe the same person who tried to kill her.

Lisa tried not to look down at the whitecapped waves. The water kept rolling under the plane as if it were going to take off. This was like walking the edge of a wave, as if the width of the shiny wing was a surf-board to ride the water. She could not fall, not go in again. No Mitch to save her this time. It wasn't the Wild River, but she didn't want to hit her head and become a second body in the lake.

Balancing, bending her knees to take the rocking, glad she wore her old pair of rubber-soled shoes, she held up both arms in a V, at first shakily, then strongly. V for victory, if they saw her. If not, should they move Ginger, haul her up?

Picturing one of those old wing walkers from the pioneering days of aviation, she held her stance as long as she could, then dropped to her knees and grabbed the edge of the wing again. But from here it might be worse to get down than it was to get up.

"Could you see anything from there?" Vanessa shouted. "Maybe we should row out in our boat a ways and do it from there. I think this anchor chain's wrapped around her somehow. It seems taut, but when I try to move it, she floats up."

With a shudder at that description, Lisa squinted down the lake to see if a boat was coming. Nothing. Nothing moving but the marching waves. Should she try to stand and make the V again?

As she pulled herself into a kneeling position to try once more, Vanessa shouted, "I just wish her eyes weren't open, like she's watching me!"

Lisa tried to shut out those words as she got up from her sore knees and signaled for help again.

Blessedly, within ten minutes after Lisa made it back to the dock, they heard the hum of a motor. Vanessa ran along the shore, waving her white jacket.

"They must have seen you!" she cried to Lisa, who refused to leave Ginger alone and sat on the dock with her hand steadying the anchor chain. "A boat with at least three people in it! I'm pretty sure one of them's Spike--he's tall! I think it's Christine with Spike and Mitch!"

Lisa fought to stay calm though thoughts bombarded her. How she wished she'd had the chance to question Ginger about what she'd seen the day someone shoved her in the river. Poor Ginger with her rough life and posh dreams--all those magazines she, no doubt, could not afford one thing from, especially since she was saving to pay her brother back for the wood he'd cut for her over the years. All those baked goods sitting in the kitchen, as if she'd prepared them not for the lodge or the Mountain Woman Festival but for her own funeral.

The motorboat wheeled around the plane and came to the side of the dock where they'd put their rowboat. The two men had brought Christine with them. Poor Spike, poor Ginger. All hell was about to break loose.

Lisa glanced down one more time at Ginger in the water, rocked by the lake she must have loved, her face partly obscured by darkening water and waves. Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face-to-face, their minister had read at Grandma's funeral service. Now Lisa had to see through the facade someone had built to find and face down who had pushed her in the river--and, if this wasn't an accident--who had done this.

As another Alaska twilight set in, Christine comforted Spike on the dock while Vanessa and Lisa sat on rocks on the shore. Mitch had taken the boat back to the lodge to call the sheriff in Talkeetna. Christine didn't like Sheriff Moran coming, but she was heart-broken for Spike and would stick tight to do what she could. Ginger's death would leave a big hole in his heart she would try to fill.

Spike was crying unashamedly, and she was scared he was going to haul Ginger's body up despite Mitch telling him not to. The three lawyers had agreed they shouldn't even go back into Ginger's house. To determine if there had been foul play, they would need to give evidence, the cabin would have to be fingerprinted and, since Ginger had several visitors today, a lot of prints eliminated. Remembering the police investigation that had swallowed her up, Christine frowned as she rubbed her right hand hard against her denim skirt.

With her other, she held Spike's. He stared down at his sister in the water. But, she thought, what if some of those prints in Ginger's cabin shouldn't be eliminated? What if Gus had gone back to talk to her yet again, after the visit he'd mentioned to Mitch in Bear Bones, after Mrs. Bonner and Vanessa had been there? Ginger and Gus were like oil and water together, and Christine knew where that could lead.

"I can't believe it," Spike said, swiping at his face with his jacket sleeve. "I tried to take care of her, special care because of her bad hand. I'll get whoever did this."

"Spike, she was loading things in the boat. Maybe she fell--"

"Loading things like she'd done five hundred times before with no problems--in all sorts of weather? I don't care if she was handicapped and the wind picked up, she was sure-footed. I promised my mother on her deathbed I'd take care of her."

"You did. All that firewood, the supplies, the visits. She really appreciated it, loved you."

"Yeah, well, there's no one left who loves me anymore."

"I know the feeling."

He sniffed and nodded. He wasn't staring down into the water now, but still had a hard hold of the anchor chain. Christine knew that Vanessa and Lisa had been holding it, too, so would all their fingerprints be on that, if it was a kind of murder weapon? Would Ginger's be there, too, as she grabbed at it to stop herself from going in, or would the water have washed all that away? It had been raining the day she shot Clay. She'd thrown the gun out the back door into the mud, but it still had both their prints on it.

She had terrible memories of returning home after the trial and finding smears and smudges of that black graphite fingerprinting powder the police had used. For months after, she felt smeared and smudged with guilt, as if everyone could tell what she'd done.

But now, she only wanted to help Spike, so she told him, "Ginger was saving up money to help you buy fuel from whatever she made at the Mountain Mother Festival this weekend. See, she really appreciated you."

He sniffed hard. "Saving money for me? She had so little, just dreams. She wouldn't take more from me. She secretly lived on those fantasies about what she'd buy from those catalogs someday." He shook his head and glanced up toward the cabin. "No one will want this remote place she loved. I'll probably have to get a second loan on the plane or borrow from Mitch to even bury her."

When they let you have the body back, Christine thought, but didn't say so. Autopsies could take a while and death rulings even longer, at least in Fairbanks. "I've got some money squirreled away I'll give you," she said.

Spike turned his ravaged face to her and looked deep into her eyes for the first time since he was hitching his dogs to the sleds. "I need your strength," he said. "I know you've been through bad times, Christine. I need your strength."

She nodded. She would have put her arms around him, but Vanessa shouted from the shore, "Mitch and the sheriff are coming!"

The sheriff had insisted Mitch bring him over by boat. The coroner and two police officers were driving the long way around with an ambulance. Though Mitch had had few dealings with Sheriff Mace Moran, he liked the man, a Gulf War army veteran and native Alaskan. He was a sturdy, compactly built man, still in excellent shape at around age fifty, with silvering hair and a wind-weathered face that made him look older. He was a no-nonsense kind of guy. He wore his uniform, his utility belt and sidearm, but never seemed to flaunt his power.

The small police force of Talkeetna worked their tails off in the summer when the place was filled with tourists--and the town was the jumping-off point for those planning to climb Denali--but in the winter, they dealt mostly with drunks and domestic disturbances. With the Mountain Mother Festival hoopla starting tomorrow, Mitch knew this was not a good time for the sheriff to have to investigate a backwoods drowning.

"So, could she swim?" Moran had been peppering him with questions clear across the lake.

"Never saw her do it. You'll have to ask Spike. She had one bad hand, but handled her boat really well."

"You say she had a lot of visitors today--one at a time--some of your people. I'll need to speak with them, maybe even tonight. Got to get a handle on this fast and be in Talkeetna tomorrow with the crowds. You know what they say about death and taxes, only you know when taxes are going to hit, but with death..."

Mitch cut the motor to swing around the dock. He was going to just run the prow up on shore this time to keep the dock free for the authorities. He saw Christine and Spike still huddled by Ginger's boat. At least she'd managed to keep Spike from pulling Ginger out.

"You've sure had a lot going on with Lisa Vaughn falling in the river," the sheriff was saying. "She's one of the women who found the body, you said. No offense, Mitch, but I'm not real thrilled about having to deal with a pack of lawyers."

"I'm sure they'll be savvy and helpful," Mitch assured him, but he hardly assured himself. He wouldn't complicate things right now--yet--by telling the sheriff that he and Lisa were covertly investigating her near drowning and hypothermia as attempted murder. If the sheriff knew, he could blow things wide open, and whoever had pushed her would go to ground, even more than he or she already had. If Ginger's death wasn't an accident, the person they were looking for could have succeeded with a drowning this time.

L

"One leg was wrapped in the anchor chain," they heard the sheriff say. "It musta pulled her in or at least held her down somehow, or maybe her boat bumped in above her next to the dock and she couldn't resurface for air. She had only one useful hand, so it's possible. Doc, can you tell right away if she's got a head wound that might have knocked her out on the boat or dock? With the waves, the boat could have been shifting in and out, so she put the anchor in. Maybe she missed stepping in the boat."

Lisa saw Mitch had to hold Spike back from racing down the dock. "Give them some time," he told his friend. "I'm sure they'll let you have a minute with her."

"I don't want them cutting her up later, and I'm going to tell them that right now."

"Spike, listen to me," Mitch said, grabbing his friend's arms and facing him. "They have legal authority to order an autopsy. It's standard for something like this. And you want to know what happened."

"She's dead, that's what happened!"

Sheriff Moran stood and turned away from where the men knelt around Ginger's body on the tarp that Mitch realized was probably a body bag. "You just hold on there now, Mr. Jackson," the sheriff called out. He turned back to the huddled men. Like the others, Lisa strained to hear.

"Yes, concave trauma of the back of the skull," the doctor said. "But no clotted blood means she probably went in quickly after the injury. But that's all I can tell you without more time. Drowning deaths are complicated to assess. It's hard to tell whether the victim was dead or alive at the time of water entry. The lungs are going to fill with water even if drowning wasn't the cause, and with her floating faceup like that..." Finally, mercifully, his voice trailed off.

"If you can make it quick for the family and friends and for me, I'll owe you, Doc," the sheriff said. "I'll be watchdogging the festival this weekend, but this will have to take priority if it's suspicious in any way. Okay, Mr. Jackson," he called to Spike. "If you want to come out here a minute--but not touch the victim--that will be fine, an official ID by next of kin. Then I need to have a few words individually with you ladies who discovered the body while we tape off the cabin and check things out there."

Spike walked out onto the dock, quickly at first, then slowed. Mitch stood on the shore, watching. Lisa's heart went out to Spike. She knew how this felt, though she'd never had a body--bodies--to grieve over in her family tragedy. Sometimes that fact, even after all the years, made her think that somewhere, in her wildest dreams, her mother and sister were still alive.

The sheriff spoke to Lisa first, since she'd actually found the body. He sat on a rock facing her while Vanessa paced the shoreline waiting her turn for interrogation.

"Quite a vacation, huh, Ms. Vaughn?"

"It's been challenging."

"I like your attitude after all you been through. Things are tougher in Alaska, like that TV show title says, but that makes people tougher, too. Seems you're holding up well."

"Yes and no, Sheriff. I saw my mother and sister drown when I was a child, so that makes this--and my river ride--even worse for me." She had decided to explain that up front, because she figured Vanessa might tell him she'd screamed for her mother--if she actually had. But if she hadn't, that meant Vanessa was working on her somehow and had researched her past--that is, unless the Bonners or Mitch had told Vanessa about her childhood tragedy when she'd trusted them not to.

Worse, Lisa was starting to wonder if Vanessa could have somehow known Ginger's body was in the water and had set her up to discover the drowning. Vanessa was probably the last person to visit, so maybe she had seen Ginger was dead and realized seeing her drowned would freak Lisa out, and she could use that against her in the senior partner competition. No, that was too farfetched. She was getting paranoid again. Yet Vanessa had told her to check if Ginger's boat had pulled away from the dock. And if she suspected Vanessa of setting her up to find the body, did that mean she also thought Vanessa could have actually harmed Ginger?

"I said, you sure you're okay?" the sheriff asked, touching her arm. "Real sorry to hear about your own tragedy, Ms. Vaughn."

"Lisa. Lisa is fine."

"Are you fine? That is, considering you just discovered a drowned woman, which obviously reminded you of your own tragedy?"

"My lawyer training kicks in when necessary. At least, I hope so. Go ahead with your questions. I can be objective."

"Real interesting, dealing with a lot of lawyers. Not my cup of tea."

"I can understand that. Dealing with some officers of the law isn't a lawyer's favorite cup of tea either."

"I think we understand each other, so let's get down to brass tacks."

She recounted why she and Vanessa had come across the lake and said Christine would back all that up. She led him step by step through their search for Ginger, giving him time to take notes on a pad he'd pulled from his shirt pocket. When he asked, she told him who had visited Ginger earlier in the day and why. She included her firsthand information about Ginger and Gus Majors because that had to come out anyway.

"Big guy, isn't he? I know who he is," he said, frowning, and underlined something back and forth on his notepad.

"I found him to be very congenial and honest. He clearly told Mitch, Vanessa and me that he'd seen Ginger and had words with her earlier today. I could tell he was expecting her to show up at the lodge this evening. Those aren't the sort of words or actions of a man who had hurt her earlier."

"Gotcha on that, attorney Vaughn, but I'll draw my own conclusions. Passions can flare just as hot in Alaska as anywhere else. So, the other lodge visitor besides you and Ms. Guerena was Mrs. Ellen--called Ellie--Bonner, and she's back at the lodge. I'll need to talk to her there."

"Look, I've been here for a couple of hours, and I'm exhausted. Do you mind if I ask Mitch to take me back to the lodge now?" She had to talk to Mitch, had to tell him how Vanessa might have staged some of this.

"Sure. Both of you can go, and I'll drop Ms. Guerena back there after I talk to her and come to interview Mrs. Bonner. Needless to say, I might have to ask Mitch's guests to extend their vacation if there's any need."

"I understand. By the way, in the cabin are a lot of freshly baked goods Ginger was evidently going to sell at the festival tomorrow. Rather than just let them go to waste--if it's all right with Spike--could some of us sell them in town tomorrow for her estate? We were going in anyway, and Christine said Spike will need the money to bury Ginger."

"I'll go take a look-see at them, and if Spike says so, fine by me. You want to go ask him?"

She went to Christine first and explained her idea. Christine wiped her eyes and nodded. "It would be a way to help Spike and honor Ginger's wishes," she said with a decisive nod. "Baking and helping with the ziplining--Ginger loved to do both. Does he--Does the sheriff, the coroner, too, think she slipped?"

"That would be their first assumption, but they have to look at all the possibilities."

"And that means murder?"

"Other than suicide--and that's a real long shot here--that's the last option. If they find someone caused this, depending on what they can prove about intent, the authorities could bring charges."

"If they can figure out who did it," Christine interrupted with a visible shudder and a stifled sob. "Don't I know how all that goes? Mitch says you looked up my past, but you've been kind anyway."

Lisa wasn't sure what to say. She had expected Christine to be more upset.

"Well," Christine went on, "after you were rescued, he told me about yours, too, your family loss, even before you shared that with me. So we understand each other on grief and regret at least."

"Yes," Lisa whispered as tears blurred her vision so that this woman's face, like Ginger's in the water, her mother's in her dreams, seemed to waver and shimmer. They embraced quickly, then stepped back. In years of closing remarks and court summation, Lisa had never heard something so terrible and complicated put so concisely and so right.

Lisa sat facing Mitch as he took her back to the lodge in the motorboat. The wind raked his hair with invisible fingers and ballooned his unzipped jacket. The bottom of the boat pounded from wave to wave. The roar of the motor made them shout at each other as she told him her new suspicions about Vanessa.

He listened carefully, nodding. "Are you sure you didn't actually cry out something about your mother?" he finally asked.

"I had a flashback to my nightmare and screamed, but I swear she made that up. Mitch, she's been looking into my past to see how she can psychologically rattle me and might have let me find Ginger to set me off."

"I'm sorry that had to be you. I guess Vanessa could have set that up, but we can't prove anything from what you said."

"I never really exchanged one word with Ginger, but I intended to. She could well have been in the area when someone shoved me in."

"Yeah. I saw her boat but not her when I ran down to the lake to get the kayak to come after you. Move here on this seat with me, so we don't have to shout. We're both getting hoarse."

He gave her a hand, and she moved beside him. Just behind them, water from the outboard motor plumed in a white rooster tail, just like water bursting over rocks in the river. She shuddered and put her arms around herself for warmth, then Mitch put an arm around her and steered one-handed, probably the way Ginger had always steered her boat. When they'd left, one of the policemen was going over the boat with a flashlight and tweezers, no less.

"Lisa, it's a leap to think Ginger's death and your possible drowning are related. The two of you never really met and seem to have nothing in common."

"So we're back to the big possibility that my would-be killer thought--or knew--Ginger had seen something. But with all the visitors she had today, how could someone else have sneaked over there and hurt her? As we agreed before, someone's desperate and devious."

"Yeah. We have met the enemy and he is us."

"Mitch, it has to be someone at the lodge, someone from the firm. We need to re-examine everything, everyone, even Graham and Ellie."

"I know. I have been. Meet me about an hour before breakfast in the wine cellar tomorrow morning. The sheriff will be at the lodge soon to talk to Ellie, and there's going to be a lot of unrest tonight, when both of us--all of us--need some sleep. I swear, I've never caught up with sleep since our river run. I'm like a zombie, not sure if I'm thinking straight. Almost there, sweetheart. I see Graham waiting on the shore."

She moved back to the other seat so Mitch could maneuver the boat in. Sweetheart? He'd called her sweetheart. Graham would have seen his arm around her, but so what? It had been one horrible, long day, and it was not even nearly over yet.

"Was it an accident?" Graham shouted as Mitch edged the boat up to the dock.

Now, that was the question, Lisa thought, looking down into the roiling water.

Before the sheriff questioned Ellie, Graham insisted that a lawyer sit in with her, one that was not her husband. Lisa was touched and Vanessa annoyed when Graham asked Lisa to be that person. With cocoa Christine had fixed for everyone, the three of them sat before the cold hearth. It was nearly midnight. The sheriff had Ellie explain her visit to Ginger's--she had driven the spare car from the lodge around the lake--and listened patiently to her tell how impressed she was with Ginger's baking skills and quaint cabin.

"So you ordered some baked goods to take back with you?" he asked, obviously surprising Ellie.

"Why, yes, I did. I suppose Vanessa or Lisa told you that. She was to bake them later. The items she'd been working on for a couple of days were to sell at the Talkeetna festival."

"Lisa," he said, turning to her, "I forgot to tell you, I got the baked goods in the trunk of the car. It's okay by Spike, it's okay by me, a nice way to honor Ginger's memory. But if word gets out you're selling a dead woman's items tomorrow, don't you or anyone else be telling your theories about what happened. Got that?"

"Got that, Sheriff. And thanks for permission."

"Now, you ladies recall if anyone paid her up front for the goods she was gonna bake for you?" he asked.

"Actually, I did," Ellie said, her index finger hooked over her gold necklace, sliding back and forth. If Lisa had had any prep time with her, she'd have told her there was nothing to be nervous about. But she could understand. Ellen Carlisle Bonner was hardly used to being interrogated by the police.

"I gave her fifty dollars," Ellie said.

"Nice price for bakery items," the sheriff said, writing in his notebook again. "But then we're gonna have to figure out where she got this--whose hand-writing's on it, too, though we can sure lift prints." He turned around to pull a ziplocked plastic bag from a paper sack he'd placed behind his chair. "There's not fifty but two hundred dollars in cash in the envelope inside here, with the printed return address of The Duck Lake Lodge, Bear Bones, Alaska," he told them. "Besides Ginger's name, the envelope bears the words more to come." Lisa leaned forward far enough to see that was exactly what it said.

"Found in a drawer in her bedroom," the sheriff added. "Of course, we'll fingerprint the envelope and money--we're kinda low-tech around here, since fancy DNA forensic work goes to Fairbanks or Anchorage. But we can also trace the handwriting on the envelope." When Ellie sat back farther in her chair as if it was beneath her to squint at the envelope, the sheriff dropped it back in his sack.

Then, as Lisa's clients had done to her many a time, Ellie blurted, "You won't have to look far, Sheriff. I did order only fifty dollars of baked goods, but I put the other one hundred and fifty in there as a gift. That's my writing. But I promised Ginger I wouldn't tell anyone, and now I have."

Thank heavens, Lisa thought, the explanation was perfectly in line with the way Ellie and the Bonners operated--gifts for the needy, generosity on a grand scale. She wouldn't embarrass Ellie by extolling the Bonners' various kindnesses in front of her, but she'd make sure the sheriff realized that there was nothing suspicious or unusual in that gesture. To the Bonners, that sort of donation was like her leaving a dollar tip on the counter at a Starbucks.

"And the more to come?" he prompted Ellie. "Why that?"

"The woman was good-hearted, and I liked her. I have discretionary money for when I see someone in need."

The sheriff nodded and said no more. He didn't seem upset, but Ellie was. After all, Ellie had been coddled and protected by strong men all her life. But after being around so many attorneys and her father's and husband's precious law firm, didn't Ellie know when she'd said enough? Lisa's lawyer sixth sense made her feel more was coming.

"Sheriff," Ellie said, "I just thought she needed encouragement for standing up to Gus Majors when he tried to bully her. I wondered why he didn't want to be around her when he brought Lisa and Mitch back from their river adventure, so I asked Ginger why. It seems she was quite afraid of the man."

"That right, Mrs. Bonner?"

"That's right, Sheriff."

Damn, Lisa thought, as he scribbled something, then flipped his small, spiral notebook closed. She hoped Mitch would take on Gus as a pro bono client if serious charges were filed against him, because she couldn't practice law in this state. And despite that Gus seemed an obvious suspect, she just didn't believe he would hurt Ginger. But then, in her deepest being, she still couldn't fathom that anyone had tried to kill her, either.

L

As Lisa opened the door to the cellar, she saw that the light was on. She closed the door behind her and started down the steps.

"Mitch?"

He didn't respond. Maybe he'd turned the light on for her, then gone for something he'd forgotten. Pulling her sweater tighter around her shoulders, she went down and sat in the single chair. The lighting behind the bottles bathed the area in a warm, greenish glow, but it was cool down here. She'd never forget how cold the river was. The slightest breath of chilly air made her remember the numbing feel of it. The hot tub that first night back had helped, but she'd try the sauna soon, maybe tonight. She'd loved the sauna at the club where she used to work out. At least Mother and Jani hadn't died in cold water. They were lost in the Gulf Stream that the cruise ship's captain said might carry them far away.

She hadn't slept well last night, but that was to be expected. No doubt, the others hadn't either. Her mind drifted, pulled away by the current...down, around rocks, trying to catch hold...hold of herself in the green shifting, rushing waters...tried to get hold of Mitch...

Lisa jerked alert. Had she dozed off?

Feeling groggy, she opened her eyes and saw her mother's face again, staring at her through green water, her eyes huge, wide, like Ginger's death stare. She leaped to her feet, knocking the chair and crate table over, slamming backward into the bottles behind her. They rattled and shuddered, making reflections jump and sway. She was in the dark depths of the sea with Mother watching her....

Her heart nearly pounded out of her chest. No, this was reality, not even a dream. Wake up, wake up! The staring eyes were just strange lights through the bottom of two big bottles. She'd imagined she'd seen human eyes there, magnified, huge. Nothing there. Nothing. She was going crazy.

This was all too much, delayed reaction from her river ride, childhood flashbacks again. Paranoia that someone had tried to kill her. Exhaustion, physical and mental. Survivor's guilt. Compassion fatigue. She knew all the terms, the psychobabble buzzwords, diagnoses and verdicts. She was what an attorney would call an unreliable witness. Had she been pushed into the river? Should she tell Mitch she was wavering on that and just back off on Vanessa and Jonas?

She heard the door open above and quickly righted the crate and chair. Her pulse still pounding, she moved toward the stairs as Mitch came down.

"I was hoping to get a good night's sleep, but I guess none of us did," he greeted her. He looked as if he'd tossed and turned all night. His hair was mussed like a boy's and little wrinkle marks where he'd slept against a pillow or blanket marred his left cheek.

"I know I look like a wreck," she admitted, wanting to stroke those lines from his cheek and brow, "but Ginger's face haunted me."

He pulled her to him in a strong hug. She held on to him hard, her chin clamping his shoulder to her throat, her arms tight around his waist. He felt so strong, so stable in her sliding, shifting world.

"So," he whispered, his warm breath moving the hair by her ear, "I heard Graham and Ellie arguing last night."

She raised her head to look at him as he set her back, then pushed her gently down into the single chair. He sat with one hip on the edge of the crate, leaning toward her. "I don't think I've ever heard them raise their voices to each other before."

"Me neither. Could you tell over what?"

"Her giving money to Ginger and promising more. Since I'm playing Sherlock Holmes lately, I actually listened at their door."

"I didn't think he ever objected to her charity projects, large or small. I used to think it was because the firm's financial base--and his wealth--was really from her father, and that gave her a certain unspoken power over Graham."

"Agreed, but he may be worried Ginger's death will turn out to be more than an accident, and he doesn't want his wife--or any of his lawyers--to be even slightly involved or tainted."

"Why would he assume her death might be more than an accident? He should be thinking just the opposite."

"Because he's been a lawyer for years, and he's seen the worst in humanity. He's dealt with some really devious people who could swear up and down they were innocent when they weren't and then--I'm sorry to say--he'd defend some of them anyway."

She heaved a huge sigh. "I know you've always admired him."

"Haven't you?"

"Of course. But, if someone's clever, apparent accidents can actually be murder, which is what we could be up against here. On the other hand, I'm wondering if I should stop suspecting anyone of attempted murder for pushing me in the river."

"Second thoughts on if that really happened?"

She looked up at him. Maybe she should stop suspecting people she thought she knew and respected and just go on. Be very careful and aware, but just go on. No one had murdered her mother and Jani--no one but life's hardships and her mother's sick soul. But the denial of her being deliberately shoved into the river wouldn't come to her lips.

"I still think I was pushed," she whispered.

"Then we go with that. So have you thought any more about Vanessa setting you up to find Ginger's body?"

"As you said yesterday, it's all circumstantial. It's like, maybe Jonas cut his own towline on the sled, maybe Vanessa is out to cut me off from the competition...or from life...maybe, maybe...Mitch, it's driving me nuts."

"Though I don't want you to go, I'd send you home, but no one's going anywhere until the sheriff says so."

"Except to the Mountain Mother Festival. I think we'd all agree to cancel that, but we can't just sit around here and stare at each other while waiting for the coroner's report. And it is a good idea to sell the baked goods Ginger left to help Spike out."

"Ordinarily, he'd be taking festival visitors flight-seeing on short jaunts today, but he's not up for that. The sheriff told him he could have access to Ginger's cabin, so he wants to spend the day there. I told him I'd go with him, but he wanted to be alone, and I had to honor that."

"I'll bet Christine would like to be with him, but she's going with us, too. She said Ginger had a booth rented, so setup won't be too hard."

"I thought maybe you were learning more about what Christine's really like, one strong woman to another, who has risen above a personal tragedy."

"But it's still pulling me under," she muttered as she turned away. She started up the steps, careful not to look at the array of bottles lighted from behind again.

"What did you say?" he called after her.

"Onward and upward. See you at breakfast." She hurried up out of the green-gray depths of the little room.

Maybe, Lisa thought, as they carried Ginger's baked items into the Mountain Mother Festival grounds in Talkeetna, this would be good for all of them. She saw normal people everywhere--families, activities, laughter, noise. Reality that didn't threaten and endanger or drown one's rational thoughts.

As they set up their money box and neatly arranged the variety of muffins, breads, cookies and cakes with their price labels, Lisa looked around. In the next booth, a woman hung small, quilted wall hangings, now and then shouting at her two young boys to stop hitting each other. Across the way two women who looked like sisters put out painted tole wear in their booth; both had babies in carriers on their backs. Two men helped to tack up a sign reading Talkeetna Tole Wear Tells A Tale. What would it be like to live here, to raise a family here?

"Talkeetna certainly is the big city compared to Bear Bones," Vanessa said, interrupting Lisa's musings. Vanessa had been really cold to her on the way in, but everyone was uptight, so she'd tried to ignore that. No way was she going to let herself get all tied in knots every time Vanessa said something bitter or nasty. She had to accept that, once out of the office where camaraderie was expected, the woman's snippy self came out. But mostly, Lisa was trying to cut Vanessa some slack because she'd scared herself lately, wavering on whether she'd really been pushed. One minute she was certain of it, the next, she realized her flashbacks could have made her memory untrustworthy, no matter what she'd vowed to Mitch in the cellar earlier this morning.

Also, Vanessa seemed to really be sucking up to Ellie today, much more so than usual. Perhaps she sensed or had been told how shaken Ellie was from her interview with the sheriff.

"You think this place is packed now," Christine told them, "wait till you see it later. People around here go on what they call 'Talkeetna time'--always running late--but they'll all be here in time for the Moose Dropping part of the festivities."

"The what?" Ellie asked. "Vanessa, you've done several cases concerning animal rights. Christine, exactly who is dropping a moose from where around here?"

Christine smiled--a rarity, Lisa thought. "No, Mrs. Bonner," Christine told Ellie. "It's the moose that make the droppings, and people find plenty of them each year when the snow melts. While they're frozen, they get shellacked--the, you know, the droppings, not the moose--and made into either jewelry or something to throw at a target today. See here, these earrings I'm wearing today," she said, pulling back her black hair and shaking her head so her dangling earrings bounced. "You haven't been to Talkeetna if you don't have some of this jewelry!"

"Oh, my word!" Ellie muttered with a roll of her eyes as Christine displayed her shiny gems.

Vanessa grinned, too. "I thought those were polished or shellacked Sitka spruce," she said. "Mitch said it's used to make Steinway pianos and other wooden instruments, because of its tight spiral grain, so I just thought..."

Despite their dire circumstances and Ginger's lovely baked goods laid out before them like a memorial to her, they all had to laugh. It felt good, so good, Lisa thought. Poor Ginger had evidently loved life. In honor of that, suddenly, Lisa was determined to have a good time today. Maybe nothing else terrible would happen on this entire trip--that is, until she had to say goodbye to Mitch again.

When Lisa took her turn to walk around the festival for a while, Mitch quickly appeared at her side. "So what do you think?" he asked, with a sweep of his hand around the bustling, noisy scene.

"I think it's great. A far cry from the Broward or Dade County Fairs."

"Come on over here so you can see what a Mountain Mother is supposed to be able to do."

"Swim a rushing river and come out alive?" she asked, as he took her hand and pulled her into a cheering crowd.

"Not even some of them could handle that--unless they had Mitchell Andrew Braxton at their beck and call, of course."

She laughed for the second time today and punched his shoulder with her fist.

They wove their way through the thickening crowd to a central area with a lake and a culvert filled with water. With baby dolls in their backpacks, ten women took turns walking a log in hip waders while toting two buckets of water. Their audience whooped and hollered encouragement. One woman had a sign on her back under her doll baby: Attila the Mom!

Other parts of the round robin of tasks included chopping firewood, carrying bags of groceries, and running an obstacle course which included a simulated river crossing, using logs and stepping stones.

"That's nothing!" Lisa told Mitch with an elbow to his ribs. "Where are the live bears and the cable car?"

Lisa was especially touched by the children cheering on their mothers, while the fathers clapped and hooted encouragement. She wondered again what it would be like to be a mountain mother here, not in this fun festival but in daily life.

She and Mitch wandered past stores with sidewalk sales, art galleries, museums and restaurants.

"The cultural side of the town reminds me some of Taos, New Mexico," she told him. "I had no idea about the art galleries and museums. I just expected gift shops."

"Some great restaurants, too, not just greasy spoons if that's what you were thinking. By the way, the prize for winning that Mountain Mother contest is a trip to Europe. See, we're not all heathens and savages here."

She turned to smile at him. Again, despite the whirl of noise and movement, their gazes met and held.

"Except in bed," he added with a grin and turned away before she could comment.

They wandered over to the Moose Dropping Festival near the VFW building. "Even this has a veneer of civility," Mitch told her. "It's a fundraiser for the Talkeetna Historical Society, and it brings in a bundle. There's a raffle, and people buy numbered, shellacked moose droppings that are let go from that big net up there," he said, pointing. "See that moose-shaped board on the ground? Whoever has the number that hits closest to the bull's-eye on it wins big prizes."

"Most unique," she said with another little laugh. "But, still, I preferred the way I played my own moose game. Of course, I just pretended that bull moose coming out of the lake scared me so I could jump into your arms."

"Hah! Wish that were true!"

Lisa knew they were flirting just the way they had when they first knew each other. Here she was with a man she'd thought she never wanted to see again. Being with Mitch might be a dead-end street, but she loved it--maybe still loved him.

As the two of them headed back toward the rows of rented booths, they saw Jonas, Graham and Ellie in the distance, heads bent together in earnest conversation. Then nodding at something and somehow looking relieved, Jonas went off by himself, talking into and snapping pictures with his cell phone.

"That reminds me," Mitch said. "Graham wants to have one-on-one interviews with his three candidates this evening. More of a debriefing, if you ask me. Then tomorrow, I thought we'd have a memorial service for Ginger, and Spike really liked that idea. He asked that we have it at the ziplining site, since she liked that so much, but I'm wary of actually doing the ziplining. Too many so-called accidents lately."

"But if it means something to Spike..."

"Yeah, I know. Maybe we can just have the service out under the platform and make the ziplining completely voluntary. I can picture Ginger now, zinging along, red hair flying, whooping and hollering. She never liked flying like Spike does but she loved zooming along on my zipline."

"You know, when Spike was flying us in to the lodge, Jonas was kidding about our challenges here being like that Survivor show, but Ellie vehemently said this was as much for bonding as competition. At that moment, it almost made me think this might be her idea as much as Graham's. I think she's always been the power behind the throne, but she sure was shaken last night."

"Alaskan sheriffs aren't supposed to step behind the throne or even near it," Mitch muttered so darkly that Lisa turned to look at him. He'd seemed so even-tempered and strong through the chaos of this week, but she saw that he, too, was deeply bothered by the betrayal of someone he knew and trusted.

As they turned the corner toward the bakery booth, where Vanessa and Christine were taking their turns, Gus appeared, putting himself in their path. Lisa thought he must have been waiting for them. As far as she could tell, the cranberry muffin he was just finishing had been baked by Ginger, so he must have been over to the booth. Wasn't the fact he wasn't shunning any of them a sign he wasn't guilty of anything? The guy didn't seem to have a duplicitous bone in his big body.

"Hey, Gus," Mitch greeted him.

Gus motioned them off to the side, and they walked over to a quiet spot where they could hear each other better. Gus kept looking around, rather furtively, and Lisa's lawyer antennae went up. She could tell the big man was distraught, so he'd probably not only been told about Ginger's bizarre death, but interrogated about it. Lisa had known the sheriff would question Gus immediately.

"Sheriff Moran came to Bear Bones to talk to me," Gus said, "then drove me here to get fingerprinted. He was asking all kinds of stuff about me and Ginger. Mitch, you know I'd never hurt her. Fighting--arguing, I mean--that's how we got along half the time. She wouldn't move into town, said I'd have to live in the boonies if we got married, but I said no way."

Mitch put his hand on the big man's shoulder. "We've all been questioned and several of the women, including Lisa, were fingerprinted, too. The sheriff has to look at all angles."

"Never thought I'd say this, but I might need a lawyer. Heard tell you got your license for here."

"I did and I'm willing," Mitch assured him. "Listen, Lisa, could you give us a minute in private so I can talk to my new client?"

Mitch knew Lisa would understand attorney-client privilege. She nodded, patted Gus on the shoulder and moved away from them, strolling past the craft booths.

"So, Gus, let's just get to it," Mitch said as they walked farther away from the crowd. "When you left Ginger, you swear she was all right?"

"If you call spitting mad at me all right. Cussed me out, said she had a ship coming in, whatever that meant. Said she didn't need a man in her life who tried to tell her how and where she had to live. Except for the ship coming in, same stuff she yelled at me at the cafe in town--which lots of people saw and will prob'ly tell the sheriff about."

Mitch realized the ship coming in could be the money from Ellie that both Ellie and Graham had mentioned to him. He told Gus, "Mrs. Bonner gave Ginger some cash but she can't have thought that would add up to much or be a long-term thing."

"And Ginger said she was selling some of her baked stuff to your guests, but I didn't figure that was much of a ship coming in."

"I take it the sheriff didn't charge you with anything," Mitch said, looking the big man straight in the eye.

"Naw, but he told me not to leave the area. I just didn't like the way things were going when he questioned me."

"Then until something else happens, lie low, and don't tell anyone you've hired a lawyer."

"You need payment up front? I always pay my bills."

"How about free chainsaw sharpening for life?" Mitch told him. "But there's something else I would like to know. Did Ginger say anything at any time about enemies or someone else she was angry with besides you?"

"Naw. Angry with not having money for what she wanted sometimes, that's all."

"Did she ever say anything about the day Lisa fell in the river?" Mitch asked. "We think Ginger was in the area that day and might have seen or heard someone or something."

"You mean like a scream when she fell in? Someone like who?"

"Gus," Mitch said, "Lisa and I will keep your secret that you're lawyered-up, so we'd like you to keep one of ours. She didn't just fall in the river. She was pushed."

"Who by?" he demanded, frowning, then shook his head. "Not by Ginger."

"I didn't say that. We're trying to find out who. So did Ginger ever breathe a word about seeing or hearing anything that day? You did talk about driving us back to the lodge, didn't you?"

"Yeah, she was glad I found you. But she said nothing about the day Lisa went in the river. Did you tell the sheriff she was pushed? What if there's like--I mean, a mass-murderer type who drowns women or tries to, anyway?"

Whoever thought Gus Majors didn't have much upstairs was wrong, Mitch thought. Dead wrong.