she said. “And you are …?” She looked expectantly at Mariah, who gave her name. “Case you can’t guess,” the woman said, “I’m Thea Fiske. Fiske’s Hangout is mine. You’re welcome as long as you eat, drink and cause no trouble.” She winked beneath the crown of silvery braids that wrapped her head. “Got it?”
“Uh-oh.” Mariah pretended concern. “Okay, I’ll have a mug of hot, spiked cider and … what would you recommend to eat?”
The choices unsurprisingly turned out to be mostly Alaskan style—primarily salmon and other seafood, and even moose steak. Mariah, who had fallen hard for Alaskan fare when she moved to Juneau a few years earlier, opted for the salmon, as did most of the others.
As soon as Thea left, Mariah explained that her article would be about local wildlife, especially on and around the glaciers, focusing on whether changes to the ice fields affected the animals. Then she started asking questions. “How long have you been in Tagoga?” She looked expectantly at Emil, to her right.
The bar/restaurant’s acoustics were surprisingly good. Despite the low roar of conversations from the large crowd and the background music played with zeal by a piano player in one corner, Mariah had no trouble hearing his response. She had, with consent, put a recorder on the table, but it wasn’t the latest technology and she feared it wouldn’t pick up everything.
“About six weeks. Jeremy and Carrie joined me a month ago.” He waited while Thea plunked bread in front of them, then explained what he hoped to accomplish: collect as much data as he could on the extent of global warming’s effects in this area, and on whether something else could be causing the extreme acceleration of the melting of the glaciers.
Definitely interesting, but Mariah wanted to learn more about effects than causes.
She was pleased when Jeremy dived into the conversation. “I’ve barely scratched the surface of researching native wildlife at Great Glaciers, and whether the glacial changes affect various species.” He chewed thoughtfully on a piece of bread. “But I’ll be looking into it.”
“I was at the park earlier this evening on a boat,” Mariah said, “and saw a glacier calving. A huge piece broke off, and the captain says that’s been happening a lot more than normal even just this week. He described some orca sounds, though I didn’t hear them. But I saw a couple of otters in the bay, and a wolf on the remaining part of the glacier.”
The scientists had been there, too, earlier that day, and hadn’t seen that particular calving of Kaley Glacier, but they all compared notes. Mariah showed the photos on her digital camera, including the otters and wolf, and Jeremy expressed particular interest in following up on the creatures.
Learning that Carrie was compiling statistics on the calving and related issues, Mariah promised to provide any information she gathered, and was delighted when Carrie agreed to give her copies of her spreadsheets.
Mariah had just taken a sip of cider when the piano music in the corner stopped suddenly. So did most of the talking in the bar. Everyone seemed to glance in one direction—toward the door.
So did Mariah.
Just inside stood three tall men. Mariah didn’t understand why there’d been such a reaction in Fiske’s Hangout. They certainly weren’t the only people to have entered the place since she had arrived.
And surely she was the only one around here whose heart momentarily stopped on seeing Patrick Worley, the one in the middle.
They all wore heavy jackets, but his was unzipped, revealing a deep blue sweater. His eyes played around the room … and stopped when he saw her.
He didn’t smile. In fact, he looked a little … displeased to see her. She wondered why. Well, better that way. She seemed to be reacting all out of proportion to this man who clearly wanted nothing to do with her. She wasn’t a fool. She needed his dogsledding services, and once he had fulfilled that purpose she would never need to see, or think about, him again.
A few loud chords sounded from the piano, and the musician began playing the old, appropriate song, “North to Alaska,” singing loudly. A few patrons joined in as the place seemed to relax, and people returned to their drinks. Mariah’s tablemates resumed eating their dinners.
“You want another of those?” Thea hovered over their table as she did so often that evening. She pointed toward Mariah’s almost empty glass of cider.
“Sure,” she said. “Thanks.” Her gaze automatically returned to the newcomers, who had found bar stools near the table where Mariah sat with her interviewees.
Thea leaned down and said conspiratorially in Mariah’s ear, “Real hotties, aren’t they?” She shrugged a hefty shoulder in the direction of the new arrivals. “They all work at the Great Glaciers Dogsled Ranch.”
Not surprisingly, Mariah thought, although she hadn’t met the other two.
“Why did everything go quiet when they came in?” she couldn’t help asking.
Thea looked puzzled. “It did, didn’t it?” Her round face scrunched into a pensive frown. “Coincidence, probably. No one planned it. But.” Her voice tapered off.
“But what?” Mariah asked curiously.
“It’s the kind of thing that my mother used to say meant that even if no one realized it, they all heard an angel whispering and had to stop talking to listen … an angel of death.”
Mariah laughed uneasily. “My grandfather was superstitious and came up with things like that for nearly every occasion.”
“Don’t just laugh it off,” Thea warned. She walked away and, watching her, Mariah found herself looking toward the bar.
Patrick stared right back.
And despite how far he was from her, and the fact the piano music blared again over loud conversations, she had the oddest sense that he had heard every word.
“Is that the lady you were talking about?” Shaun asked Patrick as they stood in the crowd at the bar. Sgt. Shaun Bethune of the U.S. military’s very special Ops unit Alpha Force, was assigned as chief aide to Lt. Patrick Worley, and both held jobs at the Great Glaciers Dogsled Ranch as part of their cover.
“Yeah, I saw her at the ranch talking to my dad and Patrick,” Wes Dawes said. “Too bad I’m not available to take her out for that ride she booked, you lucky SOB. She’s hot.” Wes, a former marine, once had top security clearance. He didn’t know exactly what Patrick and Shaun’s mission was but was aware they were performing a covert operation for the military and was happy to assist by providing jobs for the two men.
Patrick bristled at Wes’s description of Mariah. Sure, she was hot. He just didn’t like to hear Wes say so, though he didn’t know why he gave a damn. “Yeah, sure, I’m lucky. I’m taking her out on the glaciers. That’s all.”
It wasn’t all, though. She had been on that fishing boat in the bay, Patrick was certain. He had sensed her presence, even from that distance. And the people she was talking to now were of real interest to Patrick in fulfilling his assignment here. He hadn’t yet found a way to get together with them and initiate a conversation. Until, perhaps, tonight.
And right now, he could continue eavesdropping on their answers to her questions about the glaciers.
“Your
