an ongoing threat against her and I only have a few officers. State troopers don’t have a lot of manpower to spare down here, either—state cutbacks.”
It had been months since anyone had counted on Clay for anything. Sixty days, almost exactly, since he’d officially worked his last shift in a police department. He met Noah’s eyes, noting that the other man’s look was serious, heavy with expectation. And Clay knew he was going to have to tell him no.
“Don’t you think it’s likely that this was a onetime thing—just Summer being in the wrong place at the wrong time? Our guy might have no idea who Summer is or where to find her even if he wanted to attack again. And protective details weren’t what I signed up for. I came to help Tyler around the lodge.” But the excuse sounded weak even to his ears. Clay winced at his own words.
Noah took them in stride. “Tyler won’t mind. He wants Summer safe too. And...it may not be a onetime thing.”
“What do you mean?” He heard something in the other man’s tone. There was more to this story than overprotective brother syndrome.
“Anchorage Police Department has had a serial killer around the city for the last month and a half or so. Summer fits the age range, the general description—female, between ages twenty-five and early thirties, fit. I’m not entirely sure this isn’t related to that.”
“You think she was deliberately targeted by a serial killer—that he knew where to find her.”
Noah grimaced. “It had barely crossed my mind as a possibility down here in Moose Haven until today. I knew about it, of course—it’s been in the news and I try to keep track. But he hadn’t left the Anchorage area, to our knowledge.”
“What makes you think he has now?”
“Just the general similarities...gut instinct mostly, I guess.”
“So are the troopers going to come investigate?” Clay had researched a bit about the local law enforcement agencies before he’d moved to Alaska, because even though he knew leaving the job behind with his old life was the best course of action, he couldn’t quite give up the idea of returning to it one day.
“No. Not enough similarities for them.”
“From what Summer told you, it sounds like a similar MO though?”
“Yes. I can show you the files for details, though it’s not pretty.”
“What’s missing?”
“He usually kills in pairs. Not together necessarily, but two women in a short time span. Every time, it’s been that way.” Noah stood, paced toward the small window in his office, then returned to face Clay. “Listen, like I told the trooper I spoke to on the phone a few minutes ago, I just have a bad feeling about this.”
“Better safe than sorry,” Clay said without thinking, without realizing that he was essentially agreeing with Noah that Summer needed protection. Was all but offering to do it.
“How many women have been killed?”
“Six.”
“Any survivors?”
“Not until Summer.”
Six women dead. Clay would not let Summer be number seven. He exhaled. Nodded firmly.
“I’ll do it.”
The fire in the fireplace in the front room of the lodge danced and crackled, the only sound in the quiet. Summer walked toward it, enjoying the warmth. It might be summer, but nighttime in Alaska always carried a chill. It was past one in the morning now, and the sky was darkening into the twilight that would last for another two or three hours until the sun fully rose again. Summer shivered. From the darkness? From the cold? She didn’t know, but she was more chilled than usual today, with the events of earlier on her mind.
She’d hoped telling the police about it would soften the details of the attack in her memory, but so far it hadn’t worked. If anything, saying everything out loud had pushed the memories deeper into her psyche, on some track that repeated over and over, replaying like a bad movie.
She wasn’t eager to go to sleep tonight. Summer felt the chances of reliving the attack in her dreams was too great a risk to take. She’d rather be tired.
She moved to the couch and picked up her sketchbook and a few pencils.
“You draw?”
She didn’t turn as Clay’s footsteps came closer. Emotions danced around inside her mind as she worked to settle on which one was strongest. Embarrassment, yes, that was it. Not only had she thrown herself into his path like some sort of damsel in distress, a role Summer wasn’t used to playing and refused to play, but she’d been standoffish and prickly, something that also wasn’t like her. Even Kate had said something to her about it earlier and Kate wasn’t the warmest of people when you didn’t know her.
She probably couldn’t put off the necessary apology any longer, as it appeared Clay wasn’t going away.
“I do.” She set the pencils in her lap and shifted her weight a little so she’d be face-to-face with Clay, who stood near the couch, just on the edge of the room. “Are you going to sit?”
“Didn’t know if you wanted company.”
“Does what I want matter at this point?”
“You’re still here at the lodge instead of in that safe house your brother picked out, aren’t you?” His voice gave away what he thought about that.
Hadn’t Clay backed her up earlier on the fact that a safe house wasn’t necessary? His tone now seemed to indicate something had changed. What had that conversation between him and her brother been about?
“For now. And look, I’m sorry that messes up what you thought you’d be doing.” Noah had informed her that Clay would basically be her bodyguard for the foreseeable future. She knew it wasn’t Clay’s fault, that he was just doing this because her brothers had asked him to, but the resentment was hard to repress. “It’s not what I was expecting, either—I don’t want my life arranged for me.” She’d spent too much time and energy crafting five-year plans to have them yanked away because of an attack that could have just been random. So far there was no proof anyone would come after her a second time. Summer was hoping, even thinking of praying, that it was a onetime thing.
“I don’t mind.”
Such a quiet, calm answer. Summer didn’t know what to do with that.
She exhaled. “Look, I’m sorry. About now and about earlier. You’re not seeing my best side at the moment.”
“Situations like this don’t tend to bring those out in people.”
“You’ve seen them before.”
He didn’t answer immediately. Just walked around the coffee table to the other end of the couch where she sat and took a seat. “I have.”
“Tyler
