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With a shiver, he went back inside his house.
At least he’d gotten some photos of the woodpecker. He glanced at his phone to confirm that they hadn’t disappeared too.
And that was when it struck him. Red head. The bird had a bright red head. Was that the message someone was trying to send him? Was it about Molly?
By bringing her to the Chilkoots, had he dragged her into a situation that was now putting her in danger? No way was he going to do that again. Using Molly as a way in was now off the table. He’d have to find another way.
In fact, he should stay well clear of Molly Evans. If that bird was a message, that meant someone was assuming he and Molly were connected. He’d have to make sure no one in town thought that anymore.
Time to keep his distance. Too bad, because she was the most interesting thing that had come along in his life in a very long time. He liked her sparkling energy and her intelligence, her directness and fighting spirit. Also, she made him laugh. He got a good feeling when he was around her, a kind of “what you see is what you get” feeling.
All of that was so different from how things had been with Liza. In the beginning, he’d been so bowled over by the fact that a beautiful rich girl wanted him that he’d excused all her selfish, petty ways. But they were a red flag that he ignored until he was far away, fighting fires in Alaska, and she’d pulled the plug.
But Molly was a completely different kind of personality, and Alaska was a completely different world. He was different too. Older, more mature, hopefully wiser.
Bad timing that she’d shown up when he had to put the Chilkoot case first. But maybe after all this was over, if she was still speaking to him…maybe…maybe...
19
Two weeks passed during which the endless sunshine melted more of the snow every day. Only quickly shrinking patches remained where there used to be snowbanks. Molly felt as if she was watching a silent battle between sun and snow, and the sun was finally gaining an advantage. It would rule over this land for the next few months, until the snow returned to stake its claim and blanket the town again.
Which would happen well after she left this place. Hopefully with Lila in tow. Even though the sparkling sunshine and budding trees gave her a sense of wild exhilaration, she certainly wasn’t going to hang around to see what seven months of winter was like.
Especially because the most intriguing Firelight Ridge resident she’d met was now ignoring her.
One advantage of the lack of cell service was that there was a corresponding lack of a need to monitor her texts for communication from a man. She saw Sam a few times, from a distance, on the other side of the road, or the opposite end of the bar at The Fang. He’d give her a polite wave or a nod, but made no move to talk to her.
He’d used her, she decided angrily. For his own cryptic reasons, he’d wanted to see the Chilkoots’ place. She’d provided him with the opportunity, and after that he had no more use for her.
That thought pissed her off. But she banished that to the place where useless things belonged. There was no point in eating her heart out over a man she wasn’t going to see again after she went home.
As soon as enough of the snow had melted, she unpacked her running shoes and hit the muddy trails that rose into the foothills around town, and then higher up, into the mountains. As soon as she hit snow, she’d head back and by the time she reached the main road again, she’d be flying high from the pure air pumping in and out of her lungs.
She found a ten-mile run, and then a loop that brought it up to twelve miles. So far, she had to admit, Firelight Ridge had New York beat when it came to scenic places to run. Central Park was great, but you couldn’t see glaciers there, or hear entire spruce groves filled with birdsong.
Instead of worrying about some blue-eyed pilot, she focused on spending time with Lila and trying to find out more about Daniel.
“Aren’t they going to investigate?” she asked Martha over sourdough pancakes in the Magic Breakfast Bus. Distance runs always made her ravenous.
“Who is they?”
“I mean…isn’t there a sheriff or something? Isn’t that what small towns have?”
“Maybe some do, but not us. We’re barely a town. Some of us don’t want to be a town, just a collection of misfits who happen to live in the same general geographical area.”
“So no law enforcement?”
“Not to speak of. Sometimes someone comes out from the state troopers. That’s the most we got. There’s a native village a few ridges over, they have an officer. But we’re outside his territory. He comes to fish in Snow River during the salmon run, but that’s it.”
“So if a crime is committed…then what?”
“It isn’t a crime to get caught in an avalanche.”
With no sign of state troopers coming to follow up, Molly realized she was on her own, other than Lila.
“All the crime shows say that we need to learn more about the victim,” Lila said as she got dressed for her bartending shift. “I’ll ask as many nosy questions at The Fang as I can get away with.”
“That’s good. Motive, means, opportunity, isn’t that what they try to figure out?”
