single utterance dropped Joe’s heart to his gut. Because he knew. The nurse didn’t need to say anything more.
Wincing through the sudden rise of sadness that welled in his chest, Joe nodded toward the doors that led to the treatment rooms. The nurse touched the security button, which released the lock on the doors, and Joe dashed through, calling back a mumbled thanks.
He hadn’t bothered to ask for a room number. There were only two rooms designated for those bodies that awaited the coroner’s visit. He knew that from previous visits. Walking swiftly down the hallway, he beat a fist into his palm as he neared the first room. The walls were floor-to-ceiling windows. All the curtains had been pulled, and no light behind them shone out.
“Officer?” A short blonde nurse in maroon scrubs appeared by his side and looked up at him. She smelled like pink bubblegum.
“I heard the dispatch call on the old man,” Joe said. “I may be able to identify him.”
“Excellent. We thought he was a John Doe. I’ll just need your badge and name for our records. Why don’t you step inside the room and take a look to confirm your guess while I grab some forms?”
“Is he…? When did he—?”
“He was DOA. Dr. Preston called it ten minutes ago. Presented as ingestion of a poisonous substance, but we’re waiting for the coroner to do a thorough workup. I’ll be right back!”
She was too cheery, but then Joe had learned that the ER sported all ranges of personalities, and it was those who exuded cheer who survived longest the grueling emotional toll such work forced upon them. Either that, or she was faking it to get through yet another endless shift.
He opened the sliding door, which glided too quietly, and stepped inside the room. Though the body on the bed was covered from head to toe with a white sheet, he just knew. The ten-year-old boy inside him shook his head and sucked in his lower lip. Not fair. Why Max?
Carefully, Joe tugged back the sheet from the head. Recognition seized his heart. He caught a gasp at the back of his throat.
“Oh, Max.” Joe swore softly and gripped the steel bed rail. The man had been so kind to him over the years. He was literally the reason Joe currently worked for the DNR.
Poison? But how? It made no sense.
The sudden arrival of the nurse at his side startled him. She moved like a mouse, fast and stealthily.
“Sorry.” She handed him a clipboard and then turned on a low light over the bed. “Just need your signature. Do you recognize the deceased?”
“I do.” Joe scribbled his name and badge number on the standard form and handed it back to her. “His name is Maximilien Owen and he’s Chippewa. The Fond du Lac band. Doesn’t live on the Fond du Lac reservation, though. Hasn’t associated closely with his tribe for decades. Eighty-two years old. Has never seen a doctor a day in his life. I thought he was healthy, though he’d had a dry cough of late. Are you sure it was poison?”
“That was the initial assessment. You know these Native Americans have herbs and plants they use for rituals and whatnot. Probably ate the wrong plant or something. It’s very sad,” she added.
Joe lifted a brow. She had no idea.
“Max would never eat the wrong plant,” Joe insisted. “He lived off the land his entire life. He knew the Boundary Waters like no one else. His dad used to be a tracker in the Vietnam War, and he taught Max everything he knew.”
“Oh, that’s touching.”
She wasn’t in the mood to hear the old man’s life story, and Joe wasn’t going to gift her with Max’s wonderful tale. He pegged her cheery attitude as a false front.
“I’m going to stick around for the coroner,” he said. “I want an autopsy.”
The nurse’s jaw dropped. “Do you…know his family? We don’t usually…”
“He didn’t have family. I’ll pay for the autopsy. This is important.”
Joe wasn’t about to let the old man be filed away as an accidental poisoning. That was not Max. At all. Something wasn’t right. And Joe would not rest until it was confirmed that Max’s death had been natural—or not.
Two weeks later…
BURNING CEDARWOOD SWEETENED the air better than any fancy department store perfume Skylar Davis had ever smelled. Pine and elm kindling crackled in the bonfire before her. A refreshingly cool August breeze swept in from the lake not thirty yards away and caressed her shoulders. She breathed in, closing her eyes, and hugged the heavy white satin wedding dress against her chest.
It was time to do this.
Beside her on the grass, alert and curious, sat Stella, the three-year-old timber wolf she’d rescued as a pup. Skylar could sense the wolf’s positive, gentle presence. The wolf was there for her. No matter what.
She opened her eyes and then dropped the wedding dress onto the fire. Smoke coiled. Sparks snapped. Stella sounded an are-you-sure-about-this yip.
“Has to be done, Stella. I can’t move forward any other way.”
Using a long, charred oak stick peeled clean of bark—her father’s fire-poking stick—she nudged the lacy neckline of the dress deeper into the flames. The tiny pearls glowed, then blackened, and the lace quickly melted. The frothy concoction, woven with hopes and dreams—and a whole lot of reckless abandon—meant little to her now.
Stepping back to stand beside Stella, Skylar planted the tip of the fire-poking stick in the ground near her boot and nodded. She should have done this two months earlier—that Saturday afternoon when she’d found herself marching into the county courthouse with hell in her eyes and fury in her heart. An unexpected conversation with her uncle an hour earlier had poked through her heart and left it ragged.
Her world had tilted off balance that day. The man she’d thought she was ready to share the rest of her life with had a secret life that he’d attempted to keep from her. She’d had her suspicions about Cole Pruitt, which was why she had been the one to approach Uncle Malcolm in the flower shop parking lot that morning she had intended to say I do. Normally she’d find a way to walk a wide circle around the family member who had done nothing but serve her and her father heartache over the years. But she’d had to know. And Malcolm had been just evasive enough for her to press—until he’d spilled the truth about Cole.
Since then, life had been strangely precarious. Not only had she ditched a fiancé, but her uncle had been keeping a close eye on her, as well. Hounding her about the parcel of land he wanted her to sell to him. And so close to making threats, but not quite. Still, she was constantly looking over her shoulder for something—danger, or…a rescuer?
Hell, she was a strong, capable woman who could take care of herself. She didn’t need rescuing.
Maybe.
“Stella, I—”
Something stung Skylar’s ear. It felt like a mosquito, but immediately following that sudden burn, she saw wood split out, and a small hole appeared through the old hitching post three feet to her right.
“What
