“You want some company?”
I considered his offer. Val’s companionship was tempting, especially after a long and grueling day, but no. I was too tired and frazzled to deal with the way he complicated my emotions. “Not tonight. I’m going to box up a few more things and call it a night.”
“Can we hang out tomorrow?”
“Sure. Give me a call after lunch.”
That night I fell asleep reading the last pages of Mani’s most recent journal. I was searching for hints about his investigation into his strange… condition. If I had known telling Mani about my dream would lead him to Alaska, and eventually to his death, I never would have said a word. Regrets are like scars—emotional wounds that never heal quite right. I had too many to count.
Instead of finding information about Mani’s supernatural situation, I was sidetracked by his surprising references to his co-worker, Skyla. She had said she and Mani were friends, but the contents of Mani’s journal suggested he thought of Skyla as much more than a buddy.
Haven’t been doing such a great job keeping up with my entries as I should be. Things have gotten busier at work. Plus, I’ve been more distracted lately. It’s been hard to focus—seems like all my spare thoughts have been filled up with Skyla.
When I first met her, I only saw the surface, the tattoos and the ear gauges and her tough exterior. She was like one of the guys and way more adept at outdoor survival than me. She taught me a lot, and I respect the hell out of her. I guess I never appreciated how much attraction can grow from that kind of admiration.
It’s her smile that kills me. It softens her hard edges. It suggests there’s something warm and tender underneath that toughness. It suggests, I don’t know… vulnerability? Like, maybe she’s not a completely self-reliant, one woman army. Though she’d never admit it in mixed company.
Maybe I can get her to admit it in my company, if she’d ever agree to be alone with me some time. That smile… I think it says she would show me a little of her vulnerability, if I could work up the nerve to ask for it.
My brother, having to work up the nerve to talk to a woman? When had that ever been the case? He was always so confident. Charming, funny, warm. He drew people like a sunflower attracts butterflies. And why had he never mentioned his attraction to Skyla to me?
Mani’s reticence stung, but I trusted he would have told me, if he’d had more time. To my knowledge he had never reacted to a woman this way. Skyla had sparked something in my brother, and maybe he had needed time to deal with it before admitting it to me.
Skyla was a puzzle piece I had never considered before—one I hadn’t known I needed to consider. And if she was a piece I never knew about, did that mean there were others? Probably. And that only made things more complicated. Where did I even start?
Skyla. Begin with her. She was the only tangible lead I had at this point, and I intended to follow it.
Chapter Five
Thorin Adventure Outfitters, the sporting goods store, operated in a refurbished, waterfront shop on the boardwalk in downtown Siqiniq. The store’s front porch gazed over the glacier-green waters of Resurrection Bay. Behind the store to the west, Mount Marathon, a bald and jagged peak, watched over the town like a devoted sentinel. Several cruise lines ported in the bay in the warmer seasons, and the Iditarod Trail enticed year-round visitors. Both attractions brought the village a bustling tourist industry, and Thorin’s store was the ideal business to thrive in that environment. Mani hadn’t gotten rich working there, but he never hurt for money, either.
Thorin’s employees took turns manning the sporting goods shop when they weren’t booked on a tour or excursion. Val offered to take me out to dinner if I promised to keep him company for the last few hours of his shift. I accepted Val’s offer on the condition he let me bring my laptop and hide behind the counter.
“What’s so interesting that you have to bury your nose in that computer instead of paying attention to me?” Val crouched over a box of newly arrived North Face fleece jackets. I eyed a fuzzy pink one, but my budget would never survive those kinds of purchases.
“I got a copy of Mani’s police file yesterday,” I said.
Val paused, hugging a bundle of jackets like a giant, plush animal he’d won at a carnival. “You did?”
“Sure, why not?”
“You sure you want to look at that stuff?”
“Why does everyone keep asking me that?”
Val furrowed his brow and started hanging the jackets on a circular rack near the register. “Because we’re worried about you.”
“I get that. Believe me. But nothing so far has been worse than my imagination… or my nightmares.”
“I didn’t know you were having nightmares.”
“I’ve always had very weird, vivid dreams. Lately they’re all about Mani’s murder. It was like I was there while it was happening.”
Val sniffed. “Don’t you worry digging around in all that police business will make things worse?”
“It couldn’t get any worse.”
Val gave me a dark look. “Never say never.”
I spent the afternoon looking through Mani’s computer files and finding way too many bootleg movies. Based on the number of video files on his hard drive, my brother must have been the pirate king of illegal downloads, and he harbored a fanboy devotion to superhero flicks. His image files mostly contained photos of friends, clients, and Alaskan scenery. One stood out to me because it illustrated the epitome of Mani at his best: happy, adventurous, thriving. In the picture, Mani reclined in the passenger seat of a dog sled, and he grinned wide enough to split his face in half. Behind him, someone in goggles and a parka stood on the sled rails. A pack of huskies strained at the leads, obviously eager to run.
I closed out Mani’s pictures and opened another folder containing the content of his email account. Mani’s email history was routine and boring, and the largest percent had come from me. Reading through them was like reading through a time capsule. I scrolled through the messages and scanned the ones he’d sent in the weeks before his death. He talked about his job, his friends, the usual.
One e-mail in particular caught my attention. My brother always had a mission of some kind: a broken car that needed fixing up, a new person in town in need of a friend, and in this case, a dog that needed some attention.
To: solinasweets@mundybaking.com
From: mani.mundy@thorinadventures.com
Cc:
Subject: How much is that doggie in the—parking lot?
You remember when we had that goldfish when we were kids because Mom and Dad said we were too busy to have a dog or a cat? If I ever have kids I’ll never tell them I’m too busy. They can have the whole damned pet store if they want.
