Page 25 of Sergeant's Christmas Siege

She could remember too well being fifteen and swept up into the criminal justice system when she’d finally made it out of the dark and cold and into that Trooper post in Nenana. It had taken years for her to stop feeling like she was playing a role instead of just... living.

She didn’t really welcome the return of those feelings.

But this time, at least, she knew what needed tohappen while she felt outside herself. This time she hadn’t pulled off an impossible escape on a stolen snowmobile and then her own two feet; she was doing her job. She called in to report the potential crime. She relayed the information she had, then—once she’d arrived at Grizzly Harbor on a boat packed full of men she’d been ready to convict as criminals twenty-four hours before—she called in again once she’d done a preliminary sweep of the crime scene, to confirm that there was indeed a homicide in Grizzly Harbor.

Not only in Grizzly Harbor, but in Kate’s plane.

Templeton hadn’t been exaggerating. He’d been relaying facts. There was a man Kate had never seen before strapped into the cockpit of her little plane. With a hunting knife planted in the middle of his chest.

“Does anybody recognize this man?” Kate asked after she’d called in and then climbed back down to the dock, having made certain not to disturb anything.

The man Templeton had identified as the harbormaster shook his head. “He’s not a local. And he’s not dressed like a tourist.”

Kate found herself looking to Templeton as if he were her partner, not an enemy. Something she was going to have to question herself about later, and sternly. Because her gut feeling wasn’t evidence, no matter how often it was correct.

“Could he have come in on the ferry?”

“A question I intend to answer,” Templeton replied, nodding at the harbormaster in a manner that had the other man bustling away as if he’d received a direct order.

And she should have asked what that unspoken order was, but it was already getting colder as the morning wore on. The clouds up above were dark and grim, and Kate couldn’t tell if it was the weather that was making her feel so chilly or if it was the sheer creepiness of such a grisly discovery. Maybe both.

Kate was ordinarily more than prepared to handle any kind of crime scene on her own, but she couldn’t think of a circumstance quite like this one. There was only a brief window of time in which this could have happened, and there had actually been some cloudy daylight then. And the reality of life in tiny villages was that it was very difficult to do much without someone noticingsomething.

Which meant, Kate thought, as she watched Alaska Force fan out into the village, that it was entirely possible it hadn’t really looked like anything while it was happening. Certainly not like what it was.

But she didn’t mention that, because it occurred to her that what she was actually watching as three of the men she’d met in Fool’s Cove climbed the hill was Alaska Force interfering in an active murder investigation.

“You can’t run around doing police work.” She was standing between Templeton and Isaac on the dock, waiting for her colleagues to find their way here from Juneau and Sitka. “This is a murder investigation. You must know that you’re civilians now, no matter how many tours of duty you did in the military.”

“We’re concerned citizens, that’s all,” Isaac said with a winning smile. “And this is our hometown. I’m not a big fan of burning boats, and I’m even less entertained by dead bodies.”

“I’ll have to ask you to wait for the troopers just like anyone else,” Kate replied. Sternly. “Just like me.”

“Let me go round up my men, then,” Isaac said in such a friendly manner that it took her a minute to realize that all he did was walk away from her, toward the shore. What he did not do was rattle off orders into his comm unit, which presumably would have stopped his men in their tracks and had them return to the docks without... doing whatever they were doing.

And the craziest part was, she didn’t even have it in her to argue with that the way she should have.

“I have to assume that the scene is staged,” Kate found herself saying, because it was only Templeton there then, and he wasn’t whistling any longer. His gaze was dark, his eyes gleaming with something it took her long moments to realize was fury.

On her behalf, she understood after a moment of shock.

She had never seen someone that angryfor herbefore. Or angry for her at all. Ever. She had no doubt that if she gave the slightest signal, this man would do everything in his considerable power to assist her. Help her. Or whatever the hell else she asked him to do.

She didn’t know where that thought came from. She tried to shove it away, but it was no good. Because Templeton was focused on her as if, were it in his power, he would start ripping apart the dock they stood on with his hands if that would get them answers.

Kate should have been horrified.

But that was definitely not the reaction her body had to all that focused, controlled fury.

“Agreed,” Templeton was saying, because he couldn’t know how he’d shook her.He can never know, she told herself resolutely. “The only question is whether this is a message to you? Or to us?”

“I don’t normally receive messages in the form of homicides,” Kate said, afraid she sounded less in control of herself than usual. “I’m not sure you can say the same.”

“Why your plane, then?”

“My plane, yes. But not my plane while it sat here all night. My plane right after I left for Fool’s Cove with you.” She frowned. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. More troopers are coming, and we’ll figure this out.”

Templeton’s gaze got harder. “We will.”

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