“I’m allergic to dogs,” Walkingtall said for the fifth time—or maybe the hundredth—as Cookie led the team into Sam’s road. The sled bumped over a mound of packed snow and Karl didn’t even try to hide his grin when Walkingtall grabbed wildly for the rails to either side of him. He was sitting in the basket in front of Karl. His sled was kind of small for a passenger, which meant Walkingtall was hunched over his bent knees like a confused great blue heron. The other man snuffled wetly before sneezing which, what with the “wetly,” was pretty gross.
Karl rolled his eyes because, really, the guys’s allergies were getting old. Behind them, Stu was whooping in the cold morning air. ’Course, he was probably feeling cheery because his passenger was Molly, which was simply unfair. It wasn’t Karl’s fault that Walkingtall had insulted Stu and his team early into the proceedings by mentioning that Stu’s lead dog, Axel, looked kind of like a rabid wolf—which he did, in point of fact, but most were smart enough not to say that to Stu’s face. Not, apparently, Walkingtall. Karl had suggested just leaving the guy at the Coot Lake Inn with Norm—because why did they need him, anyway?—but Molly had given him that look, and the next thing he knew he had an unwelcome passenger.
Karl began yelling “Whoa” as the team neared Sam’s drive—sometimes they got a little enthusiastic and didn’t want to stop for, like, a half mile or more. But today Cookie was on her best behavior. She was a big silver-and-black malamute with blue eyes—prettiest thing you’d ever seen as long as you didn’t get too close. The team even made it into Sam’s drive without overturning the sled—which, on the whole, wasn’t something Karl had been too worried about anyway.
He set the brake, and Cookie immediately turned to snap at Bug right behind her. Bug, who’d just been minding his own business lifting his leg at Sam’s front tire, looked startled.
Karl sighed and scrambled to pull Bug away before he did something stupid like snap back at Cookie. The dogs hadn’t had a decent run in days, and Cookie kind of had permanent PMS. Bug might lose a nut—or more important, an ear.
“Those dogs aren’t safe,” Walkingtall muttered in a stuffed-up voice as he unbent his long legs.
“ ’Course not,” Karl scoffed. “Sled dogs never are.”
Walkingtall looked confused at that, and Karl had a little moment of joy, and then Stu pulled up kind of showy, and Molly was there looking all worried and grim.
The front door to Sam’s cabin opened and Sam stepped out, wearing only jeans and boots and holding his gun down by his side. Karl was pretty impressed: going bare-chested in the wind was hard-core. Sam must be freezing, but his expression was stern and he wasn’t shivering. His nipples were little pointy points of ow, though, which, of course, Karl only noticed in a scientific sort of way. As bros do. Karl snuck a look sideways to see if Molly was staring at Sam’s nipples.
But she had her gaze well above his clavicles as she climbed out of Stu’s sled. “Sam, the motel and police station have been shot up and Doc’s missing.”
And like that, things got serious.
Karl watched Sam because he knew this had to hit his friend hard—Sam and Doc argued a lot, but anyone could tell they were tight.
Sam’s face hardly moved, though. Just a faint tightening of his jaw as he squinted into the morning sun. Kind of like Clint Eastwood facing down a passel of really dirty outlaws.
“We’ve got him here, Molly,” Sam said. “He’s been shot, but he’s okay.” His voice was deep and gravelly, which Clint had never been able to manage, despite being possibly the greatest actor to ever live.
Next to Bruce Willis, of course.
There was a movement behind Sam, and Maisa Burnsey peeked over his shoulder and—whoa! Maisa wasn’t wearing much besides a chamois shirt that had to belong to Sam.
Karl couldn’t help but grin. He shot a look at Molly to share in the discovery of sexy shenanigans in Coot Lake. Molly kind of frowned back at him.
Oh, yeah, not the time.
Karl coughed and hastily rearranged his face as Maisa said, “Why don’t you all come inside?”
Otter nudged his way past her knees and came out barking, real buff and macho, but then saw his yard full of bigger, tougher sled dogs. The terrier made an immediate U-turn and hustled his furry ass back inside.
Just then the last of their party pulled up. Doug had made the musher meet after all, despite the weather, which for some reason had kept nearly everyone else away. He listed a bit to the right, still recovering from his little broken-legs problem. Unlike his cousin Stu, Doug was a stump of a guy, nearly as wide as he was tall, but not because of fat necessarily, just sort of bulk. He was a good musher, though, one of the best. His dogs were almost uncannily well behaved. In Karl’s experience sled dogs tended to lean less in the direction of fluffy-and-sloppy kisses and more toward the rabid might-kill-and-eat-you-in-your-sleep.
He glanced fondly at Cookie, who was lunging at her lead, trying to get to Doug’s dogs.
Haley Anne Lingstrom sat in Doug’s sled, wearing a fake fur jacket that came only to her waist and must’ve left her butt freezing in the cold. It looked good on her, though. She was already struggling up as the sled slowed. She hopped off as soon as Doug set the brake, running to Sam in furry knee-high boots.
“Sam, those crazies have Dylan!” Haley Anne was not so much worried as mad as a hive of hornets hit by a baseball bat—something Karl had learned by experience not to do.
Everyone turned and stared at Sam.
He nodded. “You’d better come inside and tell me what’s happened.”
And they did, trooping in like refugees hoping to find someone to take them back home.
George Johnson was standing on the other side of Sam’s kitchen island, his face careful and blank, and his hands hidden. Peering around the door from what looked like the bathroom was the tubby Russian from yesterday—that Kasyanov guy. Karl kind of started at the sight of him and narrowed his eyes in case the Russian whipped out an automatic weapon and began shooting. Kasyanov didn’t really look the type, but who did?
Then Becky came out of Sam’s spare bedroom. She looked real tired, lines on her face that hadn’t been there before. “Doc’s sleeping still, but his color is good.”
“Oh, Becky!” Haley Anne crumpled into the older woman’s arms. “I’m so sorry about Doc.”
“I know, hon.” Becky looked at her, shrewd. “What’s going on?”
“They’ve got Dylan.”
Becky patted her back, making female comforting sounds. Molly went over and without saying a word, wrapped her short little arms as far as they would go around both women. Maisa hovered a bit, not touching anyone, but looking real concerned.
Karl gave Sam the side-eye. Should he go over and hug him in a manly, we’re-all-bros sort of way? Or would Stu take an honest, heartfelt gesture like that and run with it, ragging Karl relentlessly to his grave?
Fortunately, he was saved from the social dilemma by Sam’s interruption. “What happened, Haley Anne?”
The girl pulled back, wiping her eyes. “Yesterday afternoon Dylan came to pick me up from work ’cause the snow was so deep, y’know?”
Everyone nodded because of course they did know.
“And the roads were pretty bad so we weren’t going too fast, and then we saw an SUV by the side of the road like it was stuck and naturally Dylan stopped. It’s his job, after all.” Haley Anne glared then, planting her fists on her skinny hips. “I should’ve known something was up after what Jim Gustafson said at the café and you questioning him, Sam, but I swear to God I hadn’t a clue in the world. I was too worried about if we were going to make it through the snow to my mom’s house and if he should just stay there with us if we did.”
“You couldn’t have known,” Becky comforted.
Haley Anne nodded shakily. “Anyways, they had guns on Dylan as soon as he got out of the squad car. Big guns, like something soldiers would have, and they made him kneel down in the snow. I thought”—Haley Anne
gasped, tears welling in her eyes—“I thought they’d shoot him dead right there in front of me.”
“Oh, hon,” Becky murmured, patting her shoulder.
Haley Anne gripped the other woman’s hand and shook her head. “But they didn’t. They made me get out of the car and had us climb into their SUV. It was black, just like Jim said, Sam.” She glanced at Sam. “Big and square and expensive, like a BMW or something.”
“That’s real good you remembered a detail like that, Haley Anne,” Sam said, soothing like. “What happened then?”
“They drove us back into town to the police station. It was all shot up and there was blood on the ground in the parking lot. Is that where…?”
Becky nodded grimly.
For a moment no one spoke.
Karl shot a glance at Sam, but his expression didn’t reveal anything. His face had shut completely down. Made you wonder if you ever really knew a person, deep down like, until Armageddon showed up.
Haley Anne inhaled noisily, breaking the silence. “They took us upstairs and there were more guys there. They put us in that cell, and I gotta tell you Sam, there is no privacy for the toilet, none at all. I had to get Dylan to stand in front of me, facing away, just to pee.”
Karl had to agree on this last complaint. Not that he’d been a visitor to the Coot Lake Police Station holding cell all that often, but when he had, he’d felt a certain lack of respect for the more intimate bodily functions a prisoner might have to perform.
Sam didn’t seem too worried about prisoners’ rights at the moment, though. “Duly noted,” he said evenly. “How’d you get here, Haley Anne?”
“Okay.” She scrubbed her hands on her thighs. “Well, there’s this guy in charge. Not tall or, like, big or anything, but he’s real scary.” Her brows knit like she was confused. “I can’t even tell you why. He’s pasty white and has tiny eyes and he just looks mean. He was smoking these little black cigarettes the entire time, just watching us, and it made me nervous. Dylan, too. Dylan kept me close all night long. But in the morning, real early, the boss had one of the other guys point a gun at Dylan. They said they’d shoot him if I didn’t come out of the holding cell. Dylan didn’t want me to, but what was I going to do? They would’ve shot him. I could see they meant it, too.” She looked appealingly at Becky.
Becky shook her head. “You did the right thing.”
Haley Anne nodded, still trying to convince herself. “So I came out and the nasty one in charge, he said that I was to find you, Sam and give you a message. They shoved me out on Main. I knew my little Honda wouldn’t make it in this snow so I started walking. When I got by the motel, that’s when Stu saw me. I told him what was going on and we all decided to come here.”
“What did Beridze say to tell me?” Sam asked quietly.
“He said that he’d kill Dylan—” Haley Anne gulped “—if you didn’t bring him what he wanted.”
“Shit,” Karl said. “What did he want?” They hadn’t actually got that far before deciding to find Sam.
Haley Anne shrugged. “He said you’d know, Sam.”
So everyone looked at Sam. Well, everyone except Kasyanov, who tried to sneak out of the bathroom and to the front door. Karl snagged him easily by the back of his red jacket—which was beginning to look kind of ratty—and Otter helped by growling at the Russian.
“Hey!” said Kasyanov. “I go outside to have a smoke, yes?”
“No,” Sam said and he didn’t sound angry or curious or even worried. He didn’t sound like anything at all. Karl had known Sam West for three years now, and the policeman was laid-back and cool, and kind of drily funny. A regular guy. A guy good for fishing early on a Sunday morning or brewskis down at Ed’s late on a Friday night. Karl would never have guessed in a thousand years that his friend could sound so completely and utterly blank.
“No, you’re not going anywhere,” Sam continued in that same not tone, making Karl’s spine crawl like he had a thousand ticks on his back. “You’re going to sit down and tell me what Beridze wants with you. What made him chase you to my town.”
Kasyanov’s eyes widened. His face had turned greenish around the edges and he opened his mouth. And then shut it.
“Diamonds,” George rumbled from the kitchen, making Karl start because he’d almost forgotten George was there. “Beridze has come to take back the diamonds Ilya stole from him.”
At the word diamonds, Karl’s grip on Kasyanov’s collar loosened in surprise. The Russian wriggled like a just-caught fish, nearly escaping. Otter jumped up and barked.
Karl absently yanked him back again and Kasyanov sagged, defeated in his hand. “Wait, what diamonds? There’re diamonds? In Coot Lake?”
He glanced around the room to see if anyone else had known about the diamonds, but everyone looked pretty surprised, mostly.
Well, except for Old George, who was staring significantly at Kasyanov. “Yes. Pink diamonds, cut into the shape of hearts. Perfectly matched, beautiful and rare, and worth…” George held up his hands as if trying to cup the words to describe such wealth. He shook his head helplessly. “Worth more than any of us will ever see in this lifetime.”
For a moment the room was silent as if in awe.
Karl shook the little Russian, just to see if any diamonds would rattle out. “You got diamonds, man?”
“You!” Kasyanov rounded on him. “You… you thief!”
“Hey.” Karl was really hurt. Sure he and Kasyanov hadn’t had time to form a true bro relationship yet, but that was no reason to go around calling people thieves.
“Yesterday. In the lobby of that shit motel—”
“Now wait a—” Karl started.
But Kasyanov was red-faced and at full steam now. “You stole my suitcase and put your own in its place!”
“What?” Karl reared back. “What? No… what are you talking about?”
“I take my suitcase to my room and when I open it, fa!” Kasyanov made some kind of foreign-y noise with his lips and tongue that resulted in spit flying through the air.
Karl flinched.
“Fa!” Kasyanov spit again. “My diamonds, they are not there. Instead there are shitting—”
George sighed loudly and interrupted the confusing rant. “Ilya, you fool, Karl does not have your diamonds.”
“Thank you!” Karl exclaimed, glad someone had some sense.
“When you arrived at the motel, you had already lost the diamonds,” George said.
He turned to the kitchen closet behind him. Otter, who had been quietly growling under his breath at Kasyanov all this time, lost interest in the Russian and trotted over to look in the closet. George bent and took three identical black suitcases out of the closet. They all looked like Karl’s suitcase.
He began to have a bad feeling.
George looked at Kasyanov. “My niece, Maisa, had the diamonds when she came to my house yesterday.”
Kasyanov jerked his head in the direction of Maisa Burnsey. “This is your niece?”
George nodded and lifted one of the suitcases onto the island in Sam’s kitchen.
“But…” Kasyanov looked like the air had been let out of him. “But I did not know you had a niece.”
“That is because I wanted it so,” George said and flung open the suitcase.
A red bra flopped halfway out.
Everyone stared.
The bra was filmy and had tiny sparkles all along the upper edge. Karl was pretty sure he’d seen one just like it in the last Victoria’s Secret catalogue—which he got for the articles, of course.
“Dyadya!” Maisa was turning an interesting shade of pink. She rushed forward and pushed the suitcase lid closed. “That’s my suitcase.”
Karl arched his brows at that, because he’d never seen Maisa in anything but black. He eyed her chest, trying to figure out if she was wearing a sexy red bra right now.
Molly slapped him across the back of the head.
“Ow!” Karl looked at her with his patented
puppy eyes. “Why did you—?”
“You know why.” She turned back to the suitcases.
Walkingtall had marched over, all important, to get involved. He bent over one of the two remaining suitcases on the floor and then jumped back like it had turned into a rattlesnake. “It says there’s a bomb inside!”
Kasyanov yelped and Karl recoiled a step.
“It’s all right,” Maisa said loudly. “Really. My uncle put that sign there to keep anyone from opening the suitcase. There’s no bomb. Right, Dyadya?”
“Of course, of course,” the old man rumbled, as if a bomb was nothing to get worried over. “Is a joke merely.”
Karl caught the hard look Sam shot at the old man—and his niece. Uh-oh. Trouble in paradise.
But Sam said nothing as George hefted the last suitcase up to the counter. Everyone sort of leaned forward as he unzipped the thing and opened the top.
Styrofoam burst out and scattered.
Otter yipped and jumped up, snapping at the floating bits.
Karl’s heart did a nosedive. “Uh…”
“What is this?” George muttered, lifting up a clear plastic ziplock bag with a gorgeous Clovis point made from dark caramel-colored Knife River flint. One of his best, if Karl did say so himself.
Walkingtall stiffened like a pointer with a pheasant in front of his nose. “Native American artifacts! Stolen from the Red Earth Ojibwa Indian Reservation.”
“What?” Karl squawked in alarm. “No, wait, that isn’t…”
Everyone looked at him. Molly’s pretty brown eyes widened and she shook her head, looking sad. “Oh, Karl.”
“Look, I can explain,” Karl said like every single guilty asshole he’d ever seen in the movies.
“It isn’t important,” Sam said. “What’s important is the diamonds. Where are they if they aren’t in these suitcases?”
“I tell you, he has stolen them!” Kasyanov pointed at Karl, straight-armed, like one of those pod people in that movie that had scared the shit out of Karl when he was nine. “At the motel yesterday—”
“No, that cannot be,” George rumbled. “For I had the diamonds this morning when I went to meet you at the café.” He looked thoughtful. “Karl was also there with his suitcase, identical to these.”