Susan Kearney - A Night Without End

The thought of running into one of his old girlfriends was the least of her worries. And he knew it.

“No digging into unsolved cases?” she asked. Bill had worked for Customs in Alaska before he’d received a promotion and transferred to Florida. And he was damned secretive about his work. For all she knew he was still on the same case that had almost taken his life. Fear curdled in her gut. “Promise me, you’ve put the past behind you.”

“Now, honey, we’re just taking a little visit, and I may check out a few things. You aren’t going to lose me. There’s nothing to fear—”

Through the receiver, car horns blared in her ear. Metal screeched. Glass shattered.

“Bill? Bill! Talk to me, damn it.”

His car phone went dead.

“God, no. Please, please, please don’t do this to me.”

With frantic fingers, she redialed his number, but the call wouldn’t go through. Pain and panic slammed into her. Numbly, she tried the police department next.

But she didn’t need anyone to tell her he was dead. Every cell in her body shuddered as the special connection they had shared was brutally severed.

He was gone. She would never again see his warm smile, never again hear his husky laughter or feel the comfort of his embrace. She wrapped her arms around herself to stop the shaking, but the gesture did nothing to halt the tears raging down her cheeks or the shivers crawling over her soul.

Bill was gone.

And deep in her heart she knew the fear had just begun.

Fifteen months later

The herd of elk spooked, taking off on a mad run, and, on the alert, Sean McCabe instantly froze. He read danger in the Alaskan bush easily, rapidly and expertly. While many Alaskans were at home in the woods, his senses were more acute than most, and years in these mountains had endowed him with almost a sixth sense. His ears picked up not just normal animal activity—but the lack of noise. An arctic warbler in the willow thicket had ceased to sing.

Sean did not move, all senses keenly focused. The abnormal stillness spoke to him. In the bush, game could be frightened by an angered grizzly, an approaching storm, a forest fire or an imminent earthquake. But he didn’t see any bear signs, didn’t smell smoke, and though he expected snow within hours, the sky remained blue and clear. Still, his neck prickled with an acute perception of danger and he shifted his stance with vigilant caution.

Well aware wildlife could sense vibrations in the ground long before people felt an earthquake, Sean dumped his heavy backpack of supplies and sprinted toward the Dog Mush Mine. If a tremor were to hit, he might have only moments to warn Jackson, who was most likely prospecting deep in the cave and unaware of the unusual stillness on the mountain.

A Sitka black-tailed deer bolted past Sean into a stand of white spruce and disappeared behind a hummock. A woodchuck dived for its burrow while a snowshoe hare bounded through the gooseberry bushes. Forcing his feet faster along the steep, well-trod trail, he redoubled his effort to reach his partner. And friend.

Jackson was family, the father he’d never had. Twenty years ago when Sean had been a lost and lonely eight-year-old brat, he’d run away from the very thought of a foster home, and the old prospector had taken him in. At first he’d been afraid of the miner, but he soon learned Jackson’s gruff exterior hid a heart of melted gold nuggets. He’d taken in a hungry and defiant boy, fed him and educated him, given him the tools to make a living.

An eagle wheeled in the sky with a cacophony of cries. With a primal caution, Sean rounded the last bend in the trail, his boots pounding the hard-packed dirt. A bone-chilling gust pummeled him, but as he dashed into the mine past Jackson’s bivouac site, the sheer rock pinnacle cut the wind. An eerie stillness made the hairs on the back of Sean’s hands stand on end.

“Jackson! Get out! You hear me, there’s an—”

Sean skidded to a halt. In the dim light of the mine, two bodies lay in the dirt. He had no trouble spotting Jackson’s yellow Arctic parka.

“Jackson? You okay?”

Heart jackhammering, Sean reached out and touched the old prospector’s neck, searching for a pulse. His body still warm, Jackson didn’t let out so much as a moan. Sean couldn’t find any reassuring evidence of a heartbeat.

No!

He leaned over Jackson, desperate for a sign that he still lived, straining for the slightest whisper of a breath.

He didn’t move. He didn’t breathe.

Gently Sean turned the man over. Blood drenched the yellow jacket, soaked into the dirt. And now he knew what had spooked the game.

Death.

No! Not Jackson. Not the man who meant the world to him. It couldn’t be true.

A gaping wound and fresh blood on Jackson’s chest indicated that the old prospector had been stabbed just minutes ago. Sean’s vision clouded with a red rage. Spinning on his heel, he slammed his fist into the wall, welcoming the pain in his knuckles, wishing it took his mind off the agony of his loss.

Sean barely glanced at the second body. That Jackson had killed his attacker didn’t satisfy him.

Jackson was the only father Sean had ever known. Unrelated by blood yet bonded by their love of this wild land, the willful boy and the crotchety old prospector had made a family. And now he was gone.

Murdered.

Murdered in the mine he loved.

Jackson’s open eyes were frozen in surprise, horror and pain. The look of a man betrayed.

Sean ached to take out his grief and frustration with his fists. Instead, he ruthlessly quashed his anger, sank onto the floor and cradled his adoptive father’s head on his lap. Rocking, Sean smoothed back Jackson’s hair, gently closed his eyes.

He couldn’t be dead.

But Sean couldn’t deny the truth of the cooling body in his arms.

“I’m sorry, old man. I should have been here sooner. I should have been here when you needed me most.” His eyes filled with tears. He could say no more. Just sat in the cold, rocking Jackson, feeling his warmth slip away and his body grow cold.

Finally, Sean stood on legs grown numb and floated a blanket over the body. Authorities needed to be notified. He pushed his choking grief deep inside and reached for the walkie-talkie clipped onto his belt.

He pressed the talk button, cleared his throat to make the words come out. “Sean to base.”

“Marvin here,” answered the radio operator.

“I’m at the Dog Mush. Jackson’s dead.”

“Come again. Did you say dead?”

“Murdered.” The word tasted bitter in Sean’s mouth.

“I’m sorry. Real sorry. I liked that old man.”

Jackson and Marvin had played poker every Friday night for years. Was Sean imagining the voice choked with tears coming over the radio or did they have poor reception?

“Any sign of who killed him?”

“Looks like Jackson took out the other guy before he died. Send up a couple of men with sleds for the bodies.”

“Roger that. Anything else?”

“Notify the authorities in Fairbanks.”

“Will do. Base out.”

Sean’s attention turned from Jackson to the smaller man who lay unmoving on his back in the dirt, the bloody knife still in his hand. Who was he? He faced away from Sean and a hood partially covered his face, and Sean didn’t recognize the pea-green jacket or the barely broken-in boots. Perhaps his pockets held identification.

Sean knelt beside the murderer, wishing he was still alive—so he could slam a fist into his face, close his hands around his throat and kill him again. If his thoughts were vicious and primitive, at least they were honest. He’d spent eight years in the civilized east, learning that an Italian suit and tie could hide men as vicious and deadly as grizzlies. He preferred the uncrowded mountains, the unpolluted air and the sweat equity of his rough-hewn log cabin to the greedy and callous life in the big cities.