“Scary?” I asked. Maybe her confession should have surprised me, but I had already formed a few suspicions. No one would seduce crime scene photographers and go on this crazy mission with me unless she was as devoted to Mani as I was.

“I loved him so much I was scared of it. Scared of how big and powerful it was, and I was even more scared of losing it.”

“Did he know?” I had searched that journal high and low, but Mani had never expressed whether anything had happened between him and Skyla. He hadn’t written much of anything after the entry in which he admitted how he felt about her.

Skyla inhaled and held her breath. Then she let it out in a rush. “Yeah. Just before he died, I got drunk at The Pits and told him how I felt.”

My mouth fell open. “But you’re such a hard case.”

“Not when it came to Mani.”

“What did he do?”

The corners of Skyla’s mouth curled, and she chuckled, low and suggestive. “He took me home with him.”

“Really?”

The pale evening light gave out and night enveloped us, but the dashboard lights illuminated Skyla’s sad smile. “Yeah. It was good for about two weeks. I was off with clients on an overnight trip when it happened.” She exhaled a brief laugh. “I never saw him alive again.”

“Damn,” I whispered.

Skyla sniffed. “You can say that again.”

“You think they know how to make a good Cosmo?” I asked, staring at the rusted metal building leaning on its foundation. A neon Miller Light sign in the window flashed OPEN… OPEN… OPEN. If The Pits was the pits, then the owners should have named this place The Dumps. “I like an extra dash of cranberry in mine.”

Skyla snorted, and though I couldn’t see her face, I suspected she rolled her eyes. I stopped the 4-Runner in the corner of a parking lot occupied by a couple of motorcycles—the American-made kind—rusted pickups, and a primer-gray Olds Cutlass.

Skyla turned in her seat, drawing a knee under her chin. “It’s been nearly four months since Mani died. What took you so long to decide you wanted to start looking for answers?”

“After he died, I felt like I was living in an underground tunnel. Everything was dark and muffled and I did most things on autopilot, like getting up every morning and going to work. I threw myself into the bakery, worked every possible hour, anything so I wouldn’t have to think, wouldn’t have to remember. Wouldn’t have to feel.”

“We trusted the police to do their jobs. We had no reason to think they would fail. But after a while, the fog started to lift. I realized the police had no answers and they were nowhere close to finding any. No one was going to fight for justice for my brother unless I did it myself.”

I rubbed away a tear and sniffed. “But to tell the truth, I think I’m still trying to run away. This trip to Alaska is just another distraction. Another way to stay occupied. I don’t think I’ll have any more luck than the police.”

Skyla snorted. “The police stuck their heads in the ground the moment they realized Mani’s murder wasn’t going to fit onto their pre-printed list of check boxes.”

“Why are you doing this?” I said, throwing Skyla’s question back at her. “Why didn’t you tell anyone that story before?”

“I’m tired of being a chicken shit.” Skyla’s mouth curled into a funny smile, and she raised an eyebrow. “And now I’ve got someone to watch my back.”

“What if something happens to us?”

Skyla giggled. She sounded unhinged. “You want to go back? Go home? Be safe and happy?”

I blinked. “Well… the thought had crossed my mind.”

“We’re already here, Mundy. We can go through the looking glass together, or you can go home, ignorant and blissful.”

“It’s tempting, but I guess I didn’t come all this way to chicken out now. What’s the plan?”

Skyla’s expression hardened as if she had made up her mind to do something unpleasant. Determination showed in the tight set of her mouth. “The plan is, I’m going inside this bar and I’m going to stay until we learn something useful. You coming with me?” She tugged on the door handle, and the steel squealed as the door swung open. The interior light popped on, harsh and bright.

“Skyla, wait.” I lunged and grabbed her elbow. “Give me a minute to work up my nerve. This is all new territory for me.”

Skyla pulled her arm free and slapped me on the shoulder. “No, girlfriend, it’s now or never.” She scurried out and slammed the door closed behind her. I kissed my fingertips and smacked the truck’s headliner, my way of making a quickie prayer to St. Jude. I had looked him up before I left home in case I needed a little help from the patron saint of desperate cases and lost causes.

Chapter Nine

Every man in the grubby little bar stopped and stared when Skyla and I walked in, probably because we were the only women gracing the premises. More people occupied the room than the number of cars outside suggested. Maybe Alaskans liked to carpool.

Skyla scanned the interior, and then her shoulders drooped, but from relief or disappointment, I couldn’t tell. “Adam’s not here.”

“Too bad?” I said.

Skyla scowled at me. “It’s early yet. Let’s get a beer and talk up the regulars.”

I glanced at a couple of big-bellied, bearded men in the corner who had licked their lips the moment they laid eyes on us. “They don’t look like they’re in a talking mood.”

Skyla ignored me and flagged the bartender’s attention. He slid two brown bottles toward us, and Skyla paid him. I took a beer and settled onto a bar stool, hoping to make it through the evening unmolested. Turns out I wouldn’t be that lucky.

“Ladies, you wander in here by accident? This place don’t serve no fancy frou-frou drinks.” A man in a beat-up cowboy hat leaned on the bar next to us. His lip pooched out over a plug of tobacco. He caught me studying him and spat a stream of brown juice on the floor at my feet. I exercised every ounce of control I possessed to keep from stepping back and gagging.

“We’re good with beer.” I raised my bottle as evidence and tried to smile at him. The bland look he gave me said I needed to try harder, or maybe he would have preferred if I spat at him in return.

“Why don’t you two come an’ keep me and my buddies company.” He tilted his head toward a table where two men sat scratching and drinking beer. They all wore flannel shirts, boots, jeans, and trucker hats. Rednecks, it appeared, were not strictly relegated to the south. One man smiled at me and revealed a set of tobacco-stained teeth… at least the ones that hadn’t fallen out yet.

“Are y’all regulars in this place?” I asked. If we couldn’t find Adam Skoll, then maybe we could find someone who knew where he was.

“Sure,” he said, pointing across the room to his table. “That seat’s got a permanent imprint in the shape of my ass.”

I waggled my bottle and said, “You buy us another drink?”

“Sure, darlin’, and if you’re extra nice I might let you sit in my lap.”

I giggled to cover my revulsion. Skyla gritted her teeth but kept her objections to herself.

No one insisted on enforcing the sitting-in-laps provision, for which I was grateful. Skyla nursed her beer and grunted monosyllabic answers whenever anyone asked a question. I, however, flirted like a first-rate hooker. Or maybe a third-rate hooker. I lacked the experience and frame of reference to know for sure. But these men had low expectations—I had breasts and a vagina, and for them, that was enough.

“Yeah, we heard of that Skoll fella,” said Cowboy Hat when I mentioned the name. “Thought he was tough shit. Ain’t seen him around in a while. Heard he lit out of town after some trouble with the cops. Why you lookin’ for him?”

“He owes me money,” I said.

Cowboy Hat chuckled. “They usually do.” He rubbed the coarse whiskers sprouting on his upper lip and narrowed his eyes. “I might know somebody he used to run around with. I could get you in touch with him.”

I sprawled in my chair, trying my best to look bored and not too interested. “Oh yeah?”