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Simmy—or Simone—Samuels worked at the Almost Halfway Trading Post and was a ray of sunshine in the otherwise bleak surroundings. She was a true crime enthusiast also, so she and Andi always had a lot to talk about. They’d both been anticipating this final episode of Season Seven ofReal Crime, Real Time.
“Do you copy?” Lockjaw’s gruff voice came over the line.
“Roger that. Over and out.”
Just as Andi put the radio down, the gusts of snow lifted.
A man stood in the road only twenty feet in front of her.
Andi sucked in a breath. “What the . . . ?”
She jammed her foot on the brakes and hit the horn. This wasn’t the type of road people merely walked across—especially not in this weather.
If her eighteen-wheeler struck the man, he’d be killed on contact.
As her brakes engaged, her truck began to slide across the ice.
“No . . .” she whispered as panic seized her muscles.
Andi sucked in a breath and braced herself for the worst.
* * *
“On a clear day, you’d be able to see and enjoy Alaska’s boreal forest around us.” The words left Duke McAllister’s lips as naturally as breathing. “What is a boreal forest? I’m glad you asked. It’s a snow forest, a biome consisting mostly of pine, spruce, and larch.”
He knew the spiel so well he didn’t need a script.
He did at least five of these arctic tours every week.
They were a means to an end, but he’d discovered he was good at putting on the tour guide persona. If his colleagues back in the military could see him now . . .
Duke pressed his brakes as faint red lights appeared ahead of him in the smothering snowstorm. His back muscles tensed as he tried to anticipate what he might be approaching.
He had two tourists with him. Social media influencer Mariella Boucher—perhaps the most talkative, animated woman he’d ever met—and her brother Matthew, a certified computer nerd. They were twins, and apparently Mariella had gotten all the personality and Matthew all the smarts.
Both had zero survival skills and were more interested in taking selfies than having firsthand experience in the Alaska wilds.
Early this morning, the three of them had taken a plane to Coldfoot, a town more than an hour north of their current location. Duke had left an SUV there, and now they were headed back to Fairbanks. He hoped they might see the northern lights, but this snowstorm made it unlikely.
The whiteout conditions had appeared out of nowhere, and he’d heard on the CB radio that the roads might be closing. He knew good and well he might have to turn around and find a place to stay for the night.
But he wasn’t ready to do that yet.
“Wait . . . is everything okay?” Twenty-two-year-old Mariella squinted beside him as she stared at the road. “You’re slowing down.”
The woman was clearly anxious—more of a tropical island girl than the snowy wilderness type. She’d been fanning her face and dabbing essential oil on her wrists for the past thirty minutes.
Now, the scent of lemon floated in the air.
“Out here in Alaska, you need to plan for anything and everything.” Duke’s muscles tightened as he gripped the wheel. “I just want to make sure this road is clear before we proceed.”
As their fearless leader, he set the stage for how the twins would react to anything they might encounter on this trip. It was of the utmost importance that he remained calm for his clients. The last thing he needed was for anyone to panic.
He slowly pressed on the brakes, careful not to slide.
The dark sky was blanketed with so much snow that he couldn’t be sure where the red lights had come from.
But as the precipitation thinned, his headlights illuminated an eighteen-wheeler skating all over the road.
