Skyla marched into my personal space and leaned in so our noses were inches apart. She arched a single eyebrow. “I don’t know much, but I know people we need to talk to. If you think you’re up for it.”

“Why didn’t you tell this to the police?”

“The police don’t know their asses from their elbows. This doesn’t involve their world.”

I shoved my hands on my hips and uttered a sound of frustration. “What movie are you living in? The Matrix?”

Skyla leaned back, crossed her arms over her chest, and slowly shook her head. “Wrong fairy tale, Goldilocks.”

“Jabberwocks and vorpal swords?”

That brought out a genuine grin. “Now I think you’re getting warmer.”

Chapter Eight

Although I wasn’t a priest and Skyla wasn’t my parishioner, we slipped into the roles of confessor and confessee. As she talked, Skyla worried a hangnail on her thumb. I passed her a stack of loose T-shirts to fold as a more constructive way to occupy her nervous energy.

“I knew a guy,” Skyla said. “His name was Adam Skoll. I met him after I moved to Siqiniq and started working for Thorin. We weren’t like a couple or anything. We hung out sometimes. He took me to a bar one night, and we partied hard. Really hard. I sorta passed out in the corner for a while, but I woke up when Adam and a couple of guys started shouting at each other. It got ugly really fast. The guys, they all sort of tumbled outside, fighting, so I got up to follow, to see what was going to happen.”

I handed her another rumpled T-shirt from the pile and said, “You weren’t afraid they might hurt you?”

Skyla shook her head. “They forgot all about me. Adam and the other two, they were all caught up in this fight.” The more she talked, the flatter her voice went, like she was in a trance. “I still don’t know what I saw, exactly, but by the time I stumbled outside, the fight was over. It was summer and the sun was still up, so I could see the—the blood, everywhere. One guy was lying in the parking lot, moaning—screaming. It sounded like he was gargling. I wasn’t really drunk anymore. I guess fear and adrenaline had burned through the alcohol. I went to him, to the man, and, and…” Skyla’s words drifted away, and her gaze turned unfocused. She stared off into the distance. In her mind, though, she likely saw something vivid and real.

Before I could encourage her to continue, she started again on her own. “He was torn to shreds—h-his neck was ripped open.” Skyla’s trembling hand rose to cover her throat. “His body was bitten, clawed, eviscerated. It was an obvious animal attack, but there was no animal, only Adam.”

“What about the other guy?” I asked. “The third one.”

“Long gone. He was smart; he got away.” Skyla turned to me, her eyes huge, her face ghostly pale. “I’d never seen anything so terrible. Thought I would see nothing like it again, but then…”

I clamped on to her arm and squeezed, partially begging her to say the rest, but mostly wanting her to stop. Her eyes slid to mine, and she said, “I saw the photos from Mani’s murder, and it was like seeing that night all over again.”

My world lurched and took off spinning, dizzy and sickening. “It’s not related,” I said. “No way. The guys chased off some animal before you saw it.”

Skyla shook her head. “He was covered in blood. Adam. He had it all over his face. I was going to run, was going to call the police.” She wiped her eyes like she wanted to rub away her memory. “Adam, he looked at me and laughed, real low and mean. His teeth were stained red.” She bared her teeth at me, reenacting his gesture.

My stomach heaved into my throat, and bile burned on my tongue. “You didn’t tell anybody?”

Skyla’s eyes flew open wide. “Hell no. He drove me home and told me if I opened my mouth, I’d be next.”

“You got in a car with him?”

“I’ve seen terrible things before, Solina. Terrible things like you wouldn’t believe. But this was not mundane. This was not a bullet or a bomb or a knife. What it was, though… I have no words.”

“I was afraid of what Adam would do if I tried to run. Somehow I knew running would be worse for me than staying with him.” Skyla’s voice warbled. I leaned over and put an arm around her shoulder. She buried her face in my neck.

All my actions, all my big talk until this moment had been nothing more than posturing. If I believed Skyla—and I wavered on the line of incredulity—then coming to Alaska put me on the verge of unfathomable danger. I hoped Skyla was wrong, because if she was right, then I was about to do something really, really stupid. “You’re taking me to that bar,” I said.

Skyla flinched, but then she smiled as if her favorite student had aced the test. As if my demanding to go to the bar was the exact reaction she’d anticipated in telling her story. “You sure?”

“Somebody there knows something. I want to know it too.”

Skyla traveled primarily by Suzuki DRZ, a mean-looking street bike, so either I latched onto her like a spider monkey, or we had to take the 4Runner. I insisted on the 4-Runner.

“Get on the highway and head north,” Skyla said, ignoring my pointed look toward her unfastened seatbelt. I let it go. She and I would undoubtedly find more important things over which to squabble.

“Where are we going, exactly?” I asked.

“It doesn’t really have a name. It’s just this place.”

Girls who decorated wedding cakes for a living rarely went to places on the outskirts of town that weren’t legitimate enough to bother with names. “This is probably dangerous, right? This is a bad idea and we’re both going to regret it?”

Skyla stared at Resurrection Bay through her window as we rolled past its shoreline. “Don’t whine, Mundy. Val might go for it, but that kind of thing doesn’t turn me on.”

I stuck my tongue out at her. She must have seen me in the window reflection because, without turning to face me, she flipped me the bird. Skyla’s fingernails were painted a disturbing shade of purple, the color of a bruise.

After a few miles of road noise and awkward silence, I gave in and turned on the stereo.

Skyla groaned. “Stevie Ray? For real? You really are his sister.”

“You’re co-pilot,” I said. “Change it if you want to.”

Skyla perked up and rifled through the 4-Runner’s console and glove compartment. “Mani’s music tastes are for shit.”

“Hey,” I objected. “My brother schooled me on good music.”

“Let me guess. The Beatles were gods, Sid Vicious a minor deity, and Jethro Tull played a bitchin’ mean flute.”

I burst out laughing, and tears filled my eyes—the happy kind for a change.

“I’m right,” Skyla insisted. “Say it.”

“It was his only shame,” I said, still snorting with laughter.

“Oh, no, he had others.”

“Like what?”

Skyla lowered her voice and cupped her hands around her mouth as though she was about to reveal a horrible secret. “Manilow. He loved that stupid ‘Copacabana’ song.”

“Oh my God!” I shrieked and fell into another fit of giggles. “And all this time I thought he was so cool.”

Skyla laughed too. “Don’t worry. I took his iPod from him and deleted the file. He was too ashamed to stop me.”

I snickered a while longer, but when I regained control of myself, I asked Skyla a serious question. “You really cared about him, didn’t you?”

Skyla put her hand over mine where it rested on the center console. “I loved him, Solina. Loved him scary.”