Down River (22 page)

“Mitch, I just—”

“I might have saved her life twice,” he interrupted. “After I see her, I’ll let you know if she’s strong enough for a visit from you, too.” Before Graham could say another word, he turned away and strode down the hall.

Lisa felt really strange, in a different way from when she’d survived the river. She was still floaty, though they had her practically anchored to the hospital bed with wires to monitors, IV tubes and a cooling blanket tucked in over her to lower her core body temperature. She was on a blood thinner. She’d had tests for blood count, electrolytes, liver and kidney function and a urinalysis and was awaiting those lab results. A catheter had been inserted to be sure she kept in more liquid than she lost, but the only true violation she felt was from someone she knew and trusted trying to kill her again.

Despite all the poking and prodding, she liked Dr. Kurtz and her nurses very much, because they explained each step they were taking and why—unless all that was just to make her stay awake and occasionally respond to them. Everyone here had been kind and helpful. She felt protected, sheltered. And they had said that she could have a visitor before she would be allowed to finally sleep.

Thank God, it was Mitch and not Graham. Before she saw him, she heard his distinctive step. Despite the fact he looked like hell with dark circles under his eyes and beard stubble and wore wrinkled hospital scrubs, he’d never looked better to her.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he said, looking immensely relieved.

“On the staff here now?”

“Feels like I’ve been here long enough to qualify,”
he said with a tight smile, though his eyes were luminous with unshed tears. “They said I get some scrubs for bringing in Wonder Woman.”

With a glance at the monitors behind her, he pulled up a chair and leaned closer, grasping her shoulder because her hand on his side had needles for the IV tubes. “When this is all over,” he whispered, “you and I are going to fall into the same bed and sleep forever.”

“Just sleep? Mitch,” she whispered, lowering her voice even more, “it was another murder attempt, I swear it. Here I was expecting someone to make a move during ziplining or river rafting, but he or she is a murderer of opportunity. The sauna door might not have been locked, but it was held shut somehow. And to think, if Christine hadn’t encouraged me to use it, this never would have happened.”

“I know. She told me on the phone you broke the inside handle and left fingernail marks trying to get out.”

“I’ve got broken fingernails to prove it, but not a broken spirit! Mitch, you saved my life again.”

“Grateful gestures will be readily accepted later. The thing is, when I found you, the sauna temperature was in a reasonable range, there were five minutes left, and the door was unobstructed. But you did slip and hit your head? Did someone hit you?”

“No. I fell asleep for a moment and woke up really confused before I fell. But I’m still betting someone hit Ginger before dumping her in the lake. Mitch,
even if we get the sheriff in on this now, it could still be construed that it was all my fault, just like with the river, that I was at best an unreliable witness, at worst a hysterical, traumatized woman.”

He glanced at the door to the hall and went over to peek out in both directions, then partially closed it, leaving it barely ajar. “I suppose you don’t like closed doors right now, but you’ve almost convinced me Graham could be our traitor. You do recall he’s here with me?” he asked, returning to her bedside.

“Yes, so was that just nice of him, or is he making sure he gets another crack at me somehow?”

“Hardly here. Never again!” He frowned and sat down, leaning close, caressing her cheek with the backs of his curled fingers.

“Christine says the evil raven is not only crooked but wise,” she protested.

“I’ve been trying to rank our suspects and still think Vanessa’s mug should be on our ‘Most Wanted’ poster. Jonas needs the money and wants the prestige, but she’s hell-bent on the promotion….”

“I know you can’t bear to think it’s Graham,” she said when his voice trailed off, which reminded her that her throat was still dry. He helped her take a drink of water from her bedside tray. “But,” she went on, “what if the firm was hired for the casino case because Graham himself was involved in the money laundering? Whoever hired him might have figured he could keep certain names out of it or manipulate things in their favor or else he’d go down with them. Pressure
was obviously put on the newspaper reporter who went to jail rather than talk, but could pressure have been put on Graham—or maybe Graham
is
the spider?”

“I don’t know, but I’m going to tell him you’re too exhausted to see him until you’ve slept. Then I’m going to call Christine to drive in here and stay with you while I take Graham back to the lodge and maybe consult with the sheriff about this.”

“Not yet!” she insisted. “Once we get Sheriff Moran involved, there’s no going back. Everyone will be questioned, maybe accused, and just lie or clam up and we can’t prove anything yet. You saw how Gus reacted to the sheriff’s interrogation.”

“Yeah, up close and personal. I had to go into Bear Bones last night before he broke up a bar. So, can you sleep? I’m going to call Christine from your room phone, then sit right here until she arrives. When I can get you out of here, Spike, Christine or I will be with you 24/7 until we get to the bottom of this. And I’ll hold off on the sheriff—for a little while longer.”

“Mitch, thank you. As awful as some of this has been, at least we patched up our past differences a bit.”

“Enough to manage the present, but what about a future?” Again, he lifted his hand from her shoulder to stroke her face with the backs of his fingers. “Sweetheart, Graham says you’re still in the running for senior partner, and he wants to fly you back to Lauderdale so he can really take care of you.”

“Past time for Lisa to get some sleep now,” a nurse said as she bustled into the room. “I told your friend out in the hall one visitor was enough right now.”

“Out in the hall, maybe trying to listen?” Lisa whispered. “Mitch, I—”

He put two fingers over her lips. “Thanks for coming back into my life, to remind me what I’ve missed, what I’ve screwed up. Despite how I handled things last year, I still love you, Lisa,” he whispered.

She sucked in a breath. Her sight blurred with tears, making two Mitches bending closer, two nurses hovering. It was the first time in days—years—that, looking through any sort of wavering water, she had been blessed and not cursed.

He kissed her cheek, then her lips, and stood. “Her skin feels almost normal again,” he told the nurse, who was pretending not to look.

“Then,” she said with a little smile, “that’s a better test she’ll be fine than all the other ones we’ve run. If her heartbeat’s a bit erratic, I’ll tell the doctor I know why.”

Lisa swam up, up from heavy sleep. Before she even opened her eyes, she remembered where she was. Really remembered, without slipping back into the nightmares of fighting the rushing current, of drowning…or of losing her mother and sister…of losing Mitch. Above her head she saw not roiling white water, but a calm white ceiling with pock-marked patterns in it. Yes, she knew where she was
and what she had to do. Get better. Return to the lodge. And drag some monster she once thought she could trust out of his or her hiding place into the light.

She started when Christine’s face popped up over her.

“Good, you are awake,” she said and patted her arm. “Mitch will be back soon and tomorrow, they say, maybe you can go home from the hospital. But where is home now, right?”

“Thanks for staying with me. How’s Spike?”

“More than ever convinced that someone meant to hurt Ginger.”

“I’m just hoping she wasn’t murdered because of what she saw the day I was pushed in the river.”

“If she saw something that evil and didn’t come forward with it right away, then she had her own reasons, her own part in what happened to her. Lisa,” Christine said, sitting in a chair where she must have been waiting at her bedside, “I have something for you. It is something more than belief you did not harm yourself, something more than good wishes for you and Mitch, because I see how much he needs you—like I know now I need Spike.”

Lisa nodded. She had come to admire this strong woman she had at first mistrusted. It was just the opposite of how she’d shifted her feelings toward her law firm colleagues.

Christine reached for something on the floor. Paper rustled, then she held up one of the Yup’ik
dolls from the shelf in the lodge library. It was the worn one, the young girl with a half-woven basket in her hand, the one Christine had confided had been given to her mother to replace a lost sister.

“For you,” Christine said, putting the doll with its fur parka and carved wooden face into her hand on the bed. “To help you have only good memories of those you lost, not nightmares.”

“I will treasure it forever,” Lisa choked out, lifting her hand to see the doll better and finding she was no longer tied to IVs. Her first impulse had been to say she could never accept such a precious, personal heirloom, but she sensed that would have saddened, maybe even insulted Christine. “I see her basket is only half-done, which means a lot to me, too, that I have much life to live, to weave together strands to see how it comes out.”

“
Iah,
for sure, putting pieces together to find out who hurt you and Ginger. And then the other things like where is home and who to share it with.”

Christine stood and bent over to press her cheek to Lisa’s before straightening. “But, I got to tell you,” Christine added with a taut smile, “that doll’s happiest if her owner lives in Alaska.”

L
isa was especially grateful to be alive the day they buried Ginger in the Homesteaders Cemetery in Bear Bones. It was late morning of the day after she’d been released from the hospital. The beautiful day had blue skies and soft winds. It was also the day after they should have been back to work at Carlisle, Bonner & Associates in Florida. But here they all stood, surrounded by the townspeople, circling the open grave of a woman whose life had been cut far too short—and because of Lisa?

The polished oak coffin Spike had selected for his sister, paid for by Bonner bounty, gleamed in the sun as it rested on its cradle, waiting to be lowered later. Several sprays of confetti-colored wildflowers lay atop its sleek veneer as the Methodist minister finished his final prayer and led everyone in the familiar hymn,
Amazing Grace.

“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me…”

Lisa felt she was so blessed to have been saved
from a wretched death like Ginger’s, like her mother’s and sister’s. But that wasn’t enough. Only justice for Ginger and herself was enough. And she wanted to know why.
Why?
It had to be more than the senior partnership.

As she stood between Mitch and the Bonners, her gaze drifted to Spike, standing tall at the head of the coffin with Christine at his side. Spike was the only one she knew who had seemed unhappy to see her back from the hospital. He’d glared at her, and she’d noticed Christine shaking her head and whispering as if to calm him. She would have to ask her new friend to help intercede with Spike, especially if he was blaming her for somehow causing Ginger’s death.

“I once was lost but now am found….”

She had found that she still loved Mitch and wanted a life with him, but she felt confused and lost about her old life. She couldn’t leave it as cleanly and decisively as Mitch had. She couldn’t come to stay in Alaska, to become a ptarmigan with feathered feet, however much she felt the camaraderie and support of all these people she hardly knew.

But it was the present that was as confusing as the future. She and Mitch had thought they’d be able to find her enemy, but, as Christine said, the evildoer was not only crooked but clever. Graham? Vanessa? Jonas? And now, did she have to worry Spike might want revenge, too? Thank God, she’d been able to eliminate being suspicious about Christine. It was
silly, of course, that a doll could cement a friendship between two grown women and bring comfort for the loss of Lisa’s family, but somehow, it helped.

“Was blind but now I see.”

She did see now that she’d been wrong to keep the sheriff out of this, because they had not been able to force anyone’s hand. It had to be settled here, not back in Florida where she’d be without Mitch’s help and protection.

If she turned her head slightly, she could see Sheriff Moran, in full dress uniform, next to his car, just outside the cemetery gate. He’d come as a favor to Mitch and a kindness to Spike and had led the procession the short distance from the church to the grave. But she’d heard he was leaving for Talkeetna immediately after the burial.

Now that her head was clearer than it had been in the hospital, she agreed with Mitch they should get the sheriff involved. There was not much time left. Spike had said he’d fly them to Anchorage just as he’d flown them in, but she wondered if he’d be willing to take
her
anywhere.

The service ended, and, when she looked, the sheriff’s car was pulling away. Some townspeople went up for final words with Spike; some walked quietly toward the gates. Those who had been invited to the lodge for a lunch reception headed for their cars. The lodge vehicles were parked close by. Lisa saw Vanessa and Jonas start for them, heads down, deep in a conversation Lisa would love to overhear.

And then she saw Gus striding toward the grave site from the back of the cemetery, and she grabbed Mitch’s arm and nodded in that direction.

“He must have waited for the sheriff to leave,” Mitch muttered. “He has every right to be here, but Spike’s really on edge today.” Before Lisa could say anything, Mitch moved toward Gus, just as Spike evidently saw Gus coming.

“Oh, my,” Ellie said to Graham. “Not more trouble.”

“Mitch will handle it,” he assured her, and turned to Lisa. “You know I delayed announcing my selection for senior partner while you were hospitalized,” he told her, taking her wrist as if to hold her there. His fingers snagged in the seagull bracelet Mitch had given her. She’d decided to wear it today for the first time in over a year, but she had a jacket on and Mitch hadn’t noticed it yet. Holding Ellie with his other hand, Graham said, “I’d like to speak with you privately today before I tell everyone my decision.”

“You realize some townspeople are coming back to the lodge for food after this?” Lisa asked.

“We’ll find a time,” he said, and they all turned their attention to Mitch, who stood like a referee between two fighters ready to go at it in the ring.

“This is surely not the place and time for anything but honoring Ginger’s life,” Mitch’s voice rang out. “Spike, Gus is obviously here for that reason. Isn’t that right, Gus?”

Glowering past Mitch at Spike, who stood much taller, though not as bulky as Gus, the man nodded.

“Spike, can you accept that right now?” Mitch asked.

Like Gus, he said nothing but nodded. By then the minister had evidently seen the confrontation and walked over to take Gus’s arm and escort him toward the casket.

Lisa had overheard Jonas say earlier that people were buried pretty shallow in Alaska, probably because digging into the permafrost was a challenge. It was similar to burials in South Florida where the water table was near the surface. She’d never given it a thought before, but she realized now she’d rather be buried in Alaska than Florida. Who wanted water creeping up toward their coffin? Funny how so many things pointed to her living here.

“Come on, Lisa,” Ellie said, gesturing toward Mitch’s SUV. “You don’t need to get overtired your first day out of the hospital, and I want to help Christine set up for the buffet. Graham, I’m really rather glad Mitchell didn’t invite Gus to the lodge for the luncheon.”

With a last glance at Ginger’s casket and the bright rainbow of wildflowers gracing it—remembering the glorious Alaska sunset sky she’d seen with Mitch in the wilds and wishing she could see the dancing hues of the aurora—Lisa turned away. But she vowed anew not to turn her back on what had happened to Ginger or herself.

About twenty townspeople who had known Ginger or were Spike’s friends mingled with the lodge
guests near noon. Spike finally showed up. Mitch had been getting nervous since the near confrontation with Gus, but Spike said he’d just stayed to see the grave “closed proper.”

Proper,
Lisa thought. Nothing was proper about Ginger’s death or two attempts on her own life.

For some reason, both Jonas and Vanessa were hovering so close to Lisa that she was starting to feel claustrophobic. Had they heard that Graham wanted a private word with her this afternoon, or were they really in cahoots to harm her—again? She couldn’t live like this. She even took to guarding her drink and plate of food.

Maybe they had somehow learned she’d asked Mitch to put a call in to Sheriff Moran to ask him to come out when he returned to his office today. He’d be here as soon as possible, Mitch had said, but he was at the scene of a hit-and-run.

A hit-and-run, Lisa thought. She’d had two of those and she wasn’t going to have another.

She was tempted to go up to her room to lie down, but she’d promised Mitch she would not be out of his sight, unless it was to talk to Graham, and then it should be in a fairly public place, like the patio.

When the locals finally left and Graham suggested they meet in ten minutes for a short conference, she surprised herself by suggesting they walk down by the dock. If, she thought, he’d had anything to do with pushing her in the river or trapping her in the sauna or with Ginger’s death, that setting might unsettle him.

In the upstairs hall, Lisa told Mitch where she and Graham were going to meet. “Good move,” he said. “I’ll watch you from the back windows. That way I’ll be here in case the sheriff phones or arrives, but I got the idea it would be later.”

“I guess with all the time I’ve wasted waiting to call him in, I can’t complain about a little wait now.”

“And it’s going to be busy here, so the time will fly, but I don’t want you to tire yourself out. Christine suggested to me that, to keep Spike busy this afternoon and help him out, we all transport some items he wants removed from Ginger’s cottage here to the lodge. Spike wants us to have some things and others will go to his place later. Ellie’s going to organize it. As soon as you’re finish speaking to Graham, come back in so I know what he said and I can update you on what’s happening. And don’t be shocked, whatever he says.”

“He’s not going to offer me senior partner, is he?” she said with a shake of her head and little snort. She propped one hand on her hip. “Damn, he is, isn’t he? I’m getting so I can read your mind!”

“Then I’m really in trouble. Are you going to slap my face?”

“You’re outrageous—and precious to me. What you told me in the hospital about loving me—I feel the same way, too. Not again, still. Mitch, look,” she said, holding out her left arm so he could see the seagull bracelet. “I’m wearing it again.”

He took her hand and turned the bracelet around her wrist, slowly, somehow sensuously, and whis
pered, “I wish we could get two ptarmigans on there, too—ones with feathered feet.”

“I—it doesn’t mean that. I don’t know how we’ll ever work things out, but if Graham’s going to offer me that lofty and vaunted position after everything this week, he must be hoping to buy me off. Evidently he doesn’t think my apparent string of bad luck will rub off on the firm.”

“Hear him out. He may say something to tip his hand so that—”

“Lisa, you ready?” Graham called to her, leaving the huddle around Spike and Christine that must be the meeting over helping Spike this afternoon. Lisa felt good about that at least. Until the sheriff came, she’d pitch in and hope to smooth things over with Spike. Still, once the sheriff started questioning people, nothing might ever be smooth between her and her colleagues again.

“You want to just stand here or sit on the dock?” Graham asked Lisa as they stopped at the lakeshore. “You must be tired.”

“I’m fine,” she lied. “That little hospital stay was just what the doctor ordered.”

“You’re feeling flip today. Here I expected sadness—for Ginger, for leaving Mitch again.”

“I do grieve for Ginger and Spike. For Mitch and Christine, too, for their loss of their friend. I guess I’m just mad as hell and not going to take it anymore about what’s happened to me here this week.”

“Despite your slipups, shall we say, I think it’s brought out the best in you. And here I thought facing Mitch after he betrayed and deserted you would be the worst you’d have to handle here. Lisa,” he said, turning to her, “your tough, resilient and determined qualities are just what Carlisle, Bonner needs in all its leadership positions.”

She looked into his blue eyes. He stared back steadily, no wavering, no change of expression, despite a slight tic at the corner of his mouth. “Maybe you should be seated,” he said and went over to sit on the edge of the dock with his feet on the shore. She sat, too. Spike’s plane, still tethered to the dock, seemed to hover over them. “Lisa, this week of hardship has convinced me, and Ellie agrees, that we should offer you the position of senior partner.”

Her eyes widened, and she had to fight to keep her lower lip from dropping open. It was what she had wanted desperately for so long, maybe partly because it had once been Mitch’s. It was an offer she’d suspected was coming from talking to Mitch. Yet it was a shock to hear the words, especially after the chaos of the week.

But now the offer, even framed in such a flattering, supportive way, seemed sullied. Was it a bribe? Bait? Or, had this entire week been a sort of survival test, and she was the survivor?

“I didn’t think you’d be speechless,” he said. “It’s not like you.”

“I’ve changed this week.”

“But for the better, or I would have named Vanessa or Jonas. They’d both kill for the position.”

She narrowed her gaze at him. Had he meant to word it that way? Was he playing with her mind, as whoever pushed her in the river surely must have been, or was he innocent of such an innuendo?

“Graham, I know you will find this hard to believe but—”

“If you turn me down,” he interrupted, his usually well-modulated voice rough-edged now, “you’ll regret it.”

“Do what you must, but, as honored as I am by your trust and support, I can’t give you an answer right now. I hope that’s acceptable, because I do not intend it as an insult to you or the firm. Considering what I’ve been through this week, I hope you’ll give me a little time. I’m not even sure I’m going back with all of you tomorrow. I have to get a few things settled.”

“Lisa, you have clients—important clients—who have been rescheduled once already. Settle things with Mitch, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“All right—listen. I’ve offered to have him consult with the firm part-time. I think he’s considering it. You come back with us tomorrow, see your clients, take a couple of days to decide about the senior partnership, then give me a yea or nay when you’re in normal surroundings. Mitch has guests coming next week, but after that, I’ll fly him in to discuss my offer—and you two can hash things out then. We’ll
help poor Spike this afternoon, then just tell Jonas and Vanessa the decision will be made later, because of the—the upheaval this week—and that they are still in the running, because obviously they are. And I repeat, we really want you to take this position, or I’d never allow a stall like this.”

She nodded, thanked him for the offer and for being so understanding, then headed back inside the lodge, leaving him sitting stiff-shouldered on the dock. She felt like a coward that she had stonewalled him, not only about the fact she no longer felt she wanted his precious position, but because all hell was going to break loose when the sheriff arrived and heard what she and Mitch had to say.