Page 11 of Sergeant's Christmas Siege

“And you consider Alaska Force friends? Neighbors? Both?”

“I try not to consider Alaska Force at all.”

Kate smiled. “This is not a productive conversation. The question is, are you being unhelpful out of loyalty to Mr. Cross and his associates? Or are you trying to make it extra clear to me that you don’t like the police?”

“I don’t like anyone, Trooper,” Caradine said. “I wasn’t aware that was a crime.”

“How long have you lived in Grizzly Harbor?”

“Am I under investigation now? Because let me be the first to tell you, I’m no commando. When danger comes calling, I hide.”

Kate studied the woman before her. “Now, why do I find that so hard to believe?”

“I’m a cook,” Caradine said, and she even smiled. “I live on an island in Alaska, where nobody is going to irritate me by demanding gluten-free, dairy-free, food-free alternatives, and if they do, I can tell them to leave. I can serve what I want. I can open when I want. I don’t have to make small talk, or chitchat with anyone. I can just cook. That’s it. That’s my whole story.”

“Do you live alone?”

“I can barely tolerate my own company, much less anyone else’s.” Caradine sighed when Kate only gazed at her. “Yes, I live alone. And no, I don’t have any kind of relationship with anyone in Alaska Force. Thank the Lord.”

But that was a lie. Kate could see it on her face. She didn’t go after it, but she did take out her pad and make an ostentatious note in it, just to watch Caradine stiffen in response.

“And where did you live before you came to Alaska?”

“What makes you think I haven’t always been right here, marking my territory in the Last Frontier?”

“I’m from here,” Kate said. “It’s not hard to tell who’s from Outside. No matter how long it’s been since they came.” She smiled. “Besides, I’m assuming you would have had to live somewhere with a lot of gluten- and dairy-free options to find it so annoying.”

Caradine’s gaze glittered. “And here I thought I blended.”

“Okay, let’s try this.” Kate considered the stubborn, mulish set to Caradine’s jaw. “What are your impressions of the members of Alaska Force? Like Templeton Cross, for example. Or what about Isaac Gentry, their leader?”

Something flashed in Caradine’s gaze. “I don’t have anything nice to say about them. But I don’t have anything not nice to say, either. I can’t stress to you the extent to which I don’t like people and am therefore entirely neutral about them and what they do. But they’re not a cult. They’re not really commandos. People come to them for help, and they help them.”

“Why does it sound like you’re telling me these things under duress?”

“Look, I’ll deny it if you ever bring it up again, particularly in front of anyone connected to Alaska Force, but the truth is that none of them are bad men.” And the look Caradine gave her then was frank. There was a kind of dark knowledge there that made Kate stand a little straighter. “I know about bad men. This is not that.”

Kate hoped her own dark knowledge wasn’t showing on her face. “There are a lot of ways to be a bad man, don’t you think?”

“There are a lot of ways to break a law, sure. But a bad man is a bad man. Inside. Whether he breaks the law or doesn’t. Are you going to tell me you don’t know the difference?”

Kate wanted to smile her cool, unbothered cop smile. Brush off the question and carry on firing questions at Caradine. But somehow, she couldn’t. There wassomething about the stark honesty of the question. About that too-certain expression on the other woman’s face.

It was this time of year, she told herself. This endless dark and the run-up to Christmas and New Year’s, which always got to her. Too many anniversaries this time of year. Too many memories she blocked out a lot better the rest of the time. Every year she told herself she wouldn’t let the darkness and the holidays get to her. And yet every year they did anyway.

Whatever the reason, she found she couldn’t brush Caradine off.

“I know from bad men, if that’s what you’re asking,” Kate heard herself say, as if she weren’t here on business. As if she were having a conversation like a regular person.

Caradine’s gaze gleamed. “Of course you do. Welcome to being female.”

“But I don’t make the distinctions you do when it comes to breaking laws. There’s right and there’s wrong. Or there’s chaos.”

The corner of Caradine’s mouth kicked up into something a little too wry to be a smile. “This is Alaska, Trooper. What other people call chaos, we call a pissant little winter storm.”

“But that’s why I’m a trooper, Ms....?”

“Scott,” Caradine supplied. Grudgingly. “Caradine Scott.”

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