No Gentle Giant by Nicole Snow
Working In The Gold Mine (Felicity)
Ishould’ve known this wouldn’t lead me anywhere except Bad Memoryville.
Population: me.
I sit on the hard wooden chair in Wentworth Langley’s postage stamp of a police station, my feet tucked under me, now and then shifting so the unforgiving seat will stop numbing one butt cheek or the other.
My eyes feel like they’re bleeding as I pore through pages and pages of old documents from my father’s death.
Good thing I left The Nest early. I know Langley likes to dodge out before sunset. He’s usually in bed shortly after dinner, fancying himself the hero of a one-horse town where he should be ready to rock and roll in the middle of the night, six-shooters blazing, to ride to the rescue of any damsel or dude in distress.
Yeah, right.
There’s a reason we call him Mayberry around here.
But he’s still a nice guy—sweet, endearingly helpless, often frustrated with how much goes on right under his nose and yet completely out of his sight, and he can’t do crap about it.
He almost seemed excited to help when I showed up and asked to rummage around Dad’s old case files again.
I didn’t even have to promise him a cold brew or two on the house for his trouble, though I do anyway.
And that’s how I find myself shut in the tiny closet of a break room, papers spread out in front of me, while I read through words I’ve studied so many times I can practically recite them from memory.
Only, this time I keep holding my breath.
It’s like now, I think there’ll be something different.
Something I never noticed.
This time, I’ll find the one magic word I always skimmed over before that will turn the key and make this insanity make sense.
His death.
The crashed plane.
The overdose.
The gold.
How that’s connected to the Lockwoods.
And if I can figure that out, I’ll finally know what I should do, because right now...
Lost would be an understatement.
Nor do I really know what I’m looking for as I sift through the ugly, harsh photos of my dad’s old truck. That dirty lighting hurts my eyes and only seems to exist in police crime scene photos.
Sighing, I try to tell myself I don’t miss him.
Not when Dad caused so much trouble. But when I see his limp body sprawled against the steering wheel, my eyes start stinging.
My heart churns with a quiet old pain that says it’s been lodged below my ribs for too long, naked and waiting.
Waiting for me to deal with it. To face it. To do something.
There, I’m just as lost.
I never learned how to process pain in a healthy way.
So I guess I just...don’t.
I focus on the details of the case, wiping my eyes and forcing them back to the photos I thumb at, sticking my tongue out in defiant focus.
Nothing in the car.
Nothing that might be connected with his plane or the stupid gold.
Just traces of heroin. The report says it looks like he did a clumsy job melting it and then tying off and injecting it right there in the driver’s seat—almost like he couldn’t wait to get somewhere safe and had to do it right then.
That in of itself seems weird as hell.
I remember Dad when he was clean, and remember him when he wasn’t.
He was always a cautious man, and even at his lowest, he wasn’t stupid.
The love for the drug was his own dirty little secret.
He hid it away from us.
Doing it like this so clumsily just isn’t like him.
What else catches my attention, though, is the fact that they found prints on the car. Unidentified.
On the door handle, the seat belt, the driver’s seat, the steering wheel. Even on the seat belt buckle.
Who was driving Dad’s car?
I bite my lip, this angry voice hissing anxious questions in the back of my head.
Wrong question. Shouldn’t you be asking who was strapping him in?
My breath stalls, and I shake my head, wondering if I’m losing my mind.
Am I really thinking like this? Really?
This wild theory that someone else force-fed bad drugs into his veins and murdered my father?
It’s totally ludicrous, especially knowing how the smack was this constant shadow looming large over his life, wrestling him back into its clutches again and again. No matter how hard he fought to quit the stuff, he always came back for another deadly kiss.
The coroner’s report reads clear as day.
Massive overdose.
That’s the kind of thing you do to yourself when you’re addicted, just not on purpose.
I don’t know.
Something’s not adding up.
Because Dad hid that journal for a reason—tucked it away so well the police didn’t even find it during a forensics sweep of his truck. It took Mitch pulling the truck to pieces to salvage it for parts. Even the electrical tape Mitch said was holding it in place fit the seat color.
Almost like Dad was anticipating someone else might need it one day.
Someone besides him.
Did he know he was about to die?
Was this twisted message in a bottle meant for Mom, for me?
God. My face collapses into my palms.
I’m imagining things. Hallucinating. I have to be.
Looking for meaning where there isn’t any, and desperately trying to explain that multimillion-dollar payload he sank to the bottom of Glass Lake.
Just what the hell was going on in his life when he’d jump in his plane and disappear, sometimes for days?
What kind of secrets was he keeping?
What awful cargo did he carry?
I don’t get any answers—but I do get the scare of a lifetime when my phone abruptly rings, shattering the stillness.
I jump, nearly swallowing my next breath, then try not to laugh at myself when I fish my phone from my pocket.
Only to realize my instinct was right.
I stare down in dread at the text message that pops up. I don’t recognize the number, but I know who sent it.
Paisley Lockwood.
You’d think we were Bee-Eff-Effs from the cutesy picture she sends.
Her in a little poodle skirt with her hair up in pigtails, covered in bubblegum Snapchat filters with puppy ears and a nose, hearts floating everywhere.
She poses and prances on a tree-lined, sunny street with a sunny smile, fingers up in a happy V sign.
Except she’s still got that switchblade, obvious even with the blade retracted. It’s clutched between her fingers like a third digit bisecting that V, a subtle middle finger.
And the house she’s prancing around so merrily—
Oh, crap.
It’s Mom’s.
My mouth goes dry with fear as I read the text below. Dick me around much longer, daddy’s girl, and I’m stopping by for tea with Mommy dearest.
It’s like she’s tightening a noose around my neck.
I don’t have much time to figure this out and find some way to placate her.
I’m frozen, just staring, struggling to breathe. My heart jolts like I’ve just taken that glittering knife to the chest.
Then the silence in the police station erupts into shouting, men snarling, the sounds of furniture slamming and skidding around in a struggle as subtle as a gunshot.
What now?
I realize it’s after dark. I’m not sure how I let so much time pass without noticing, but there’s a gut punch of guilt as I realize I must’ve made Langley stay late for my sake.
But what hits me harder is that I recognize one of the voices.
Alaska.
He’s not snarling, no, it sounds more like he’s trading barbs with someone who is. An unfamiliar voice calls him a “bastard whoreson.”
To which Alaska calmly replies, “Little redundant, dude. You wanna try something more creative? I’m afraid I can’t give you more than a C for effort.”
I don’t know if I should laugh or be worried as hell or just start crying when I’m surrounded by a million things going haywire all at once, and this is officially more than I can handle.
Let’s go for worried as hell.
Stuffing my phone in my pocket, I go rocketing out of my chair and into the main—well, the only other—room in the police station.
Just in time to watch a redheaded man I don’t recognize get muscled into one of two meager jail cells. Meanwhile, Alaska mildly walks into the other with the air of a man who’s complying so he doesn’t cause trouble for people who don’t deserve it.
His thick arms are bunched up in muscled knots of tension, tapestries of tattoo ink twisting like dark animals.
He’s handcuffed behind his back, I realize.
What the hell.
The stranger flings himself against the bars just as Langley slams them shut and locks up.
The redheaded guy looks bloodied, bruised, his face puffed and swollen. When Alaska turns to face out, I gasp.
He’s got a pretty mean black eye himself, gone purple with broken veins spidering around his socket.
Our gazes lock. His eyes widen.
Alaska stares at me for a smoldering second before darkness crosses his face. Something I can’t quite read, but it worries me nonetheless.
We need to talk, he mouths, slow and exaggerated.
I nod subtly.
Guess I’m using that eight hundred he gave me to pay bail, if I can’t talk fast enough.
I shift my attention to Langley.
“Hey, Sheriff, what happened?” I ask, trying to sound casual and curious and not one hundred and ten percent personally invested.
Langley snorts and strokes his thick Wilford Brimley mustache. “Just a little bit of a disorderly scrum in town. Lemme tell you, I was pretty danged shocked when these two passed a breathalyzer.”
Oh, no.
Alaska doesn’t seem like the type to go around getting tanked up and picking fights.
My mind goes one place. Considering the copper-haired man’s a complete stranger, not a townie, either he’s a tourist...
Or this is about the gold.
How many ways can Felicity Randall get screwed?
Oh, let’s start counting.
* * *
I takea moment to compose myself back in the break room.
Just enough to screw my head on straight and think through a game plan.
Is begging a game plan?
Cajoling?
Wheedling?
Bribing?
Um, I’ll stop short of the last. Barely.
I will, however, flutter my eyes like a cartoon skunk if I have to. Sheriff Langley’s always had a soft spot for me since he was the one who found my dad, but I guess I’m about to find out just how squishy that soft spot is.
Not to mention how much I can get away with by promising a lifetime of coffee on the house for him and his skeleton crew of deputies.
...does it count as a bribe if it’s not cash?
Ugh.
I gather up the folder with Dad’s file. Fingers crossed I can wrangle Langley into letting me take it home with me, along with Alaska.
Wearing my best casual smile and hugging the folder against my chest, I step out.
“Thanks for letting me look at this again,” I tell Langley.
He sits at his desk harumphing and grumping over paperwork, muttering like the two men—one sulking, the other stoic—in the drunk tank have just ruined his whole month.
“Say, would you mind if I borrowed this for a bit? I know you want to get home soon, and I just need it for another day or two. I can make copies at the library and I’ll bring it straight back.”
He lifts his head, peering, squinting at me.
“What’s so important in that file all of a sudden, Miss Randall?” he asks.
“Well, there’s been some legal stuff with the house. Turns out, it’s still in Mom and Dad’s joint names all these years,” I lie so smoothly it almost disturbs me. “Something about the insurance and accidental death versus suicide, yada yada yada. I’m trying to give them proof so they won’t demand the life insurance payments back and possibly screw up some of the title stuff on the place.”
“Well, that’s real crappy of them, dredging that mess up after all these years.” He frowns. “I can let you have ’em for forty-eight hours, but you bring those files right back to me. Every page. I could get in trouble, you know.”
“I won’t let that happen, Sheriff. Cross my heart. And your coffee’s on me for a week.” I wink at him, then feign a nonchalant glance toward the cells. “So what were those two even fighting over, if they weren’t drunk?”
“Who the hell knows.” He lets out an exasperated gurgle. “Something about an old mine or some gold? Meh. By then they were snarling and spitting like rabid bears and I couldn’t make heads nor tails of it. Had to nearly get my squad car between them to shut it down.”
I’m trying to listen, to keep up my pleasantly neutral expression, but everything after the word gold turns into blank white noise.
My chest constricts and my knees lock.
I smile until it hurts because it’s all I can do not to dart a frightened look at that redheaded man.
He must be working with Paye.
And she’s onto the gold.
They were watching us the whole time.
That’s why she just had to fire off another text from hell.
Jesus.
My throat sticks, dry like I’m swallowing a mouthful of sand. My smile feels like a clown’s painted-on grimace, but I try to look concerned as I glance at Alaska, raising my voice to be heard.
“Hey...does Eli know where you are? Who’s looking after him tonight?”
“Don’t know,” Alaska says gravely. “He’s probably out looking for me with the Fords.”
I know damned well Alaska wouldn’t go skipping out on his boy, not even if he was angry enough to pick a fist fight with this guy. Not unless there was a damn good reason.
Eli’s probably sitting at Ms. Wilma’s kitchen table right now, stuffing his face with cookies while showing her all his photos of Charming Inn.
But at least Alaska’s playing along.
“Who’s Eli?” The sheriff plays right into it, tilting his head like a curious cocker spaniel.
“My son,” Alaska growls gruffly.
“His young son,” I point out. “Whom he’s liable for as a single parent, and since he’s in jail...that kinda means the liability passes to you, doesn’t it, Sheriff?” I look at Langley with wide-eyed innocence, like I’m so very curious about how the law works. “Isn’t that basically the way things go with no other next of kin in town? The kid becomes a temporary ward of the state? Especially since Eli’s only twelve.”
“Well, I...uh...” Langley tugs at his overbuttoned collar. “I’d have to call up to Helena to double-check the specifics of Montana state law. We, um, we don’t really have a social services division way out here, and—”
“I could take care of Eli!” I volunteer cheerfully. “But I think you have to give me permission for that, Sheriff Langley. As a representative of the state or whatever, right? Since you have his sole caretaker in custody and all.” I still feel like crying, like screaming, like choking, but somehow I’m smiling my sweetest customer service smile, leaning in over Langley’s desk. “Tell you what. Let me take care of the kiddo, and coffee’s not only on the house for a year, but it’s catered. I’ll have a fresh full pot dropped off here every morning. One of the big pots.” With a worried pout, I tap my finger against my lower lip. “I just hope nothing happens to Eli before you let Alaska out. You know I’ve just got awfulluck sometimes...”
Langley looks between me and Alaska helplessly, then groans, scrubbing his fingers through his thin thatch of hair.
“...so the rumors about y’all are true, huh? He’s your man. Heard it from a guy on Blake’s crew the other day and thought he was full of it.” Langley snorts.
“I—what—no!” Oh my God, I think my heart’s going to explode.
My eyes flick to Alaska, who looks completely poleaxed, made all the worse by his swollen eye.
“Uh,” he says. “She was just offering to watch my kid...”
“Look, guys, it’s none of my business,” Langley says irritably. “I get it. You’re new in town. But let me tell ya, mister, I don’t like this kind of ruckus. So I will let youand only you off with a warning, and only this once.” He stabs a finger at Alaska. “Try me again and I’m taking you right down the highway to Missoula. They’ve got smaller cells and a lot more inmates, plus busy cops with a shorter fuse than mine. You hear me?”
I know what this is really about.
Langley doesn’t want the liability or pressure of being responsible for someone’s kid. Not after past disasters in Heart’s Edge.
A lot can happen in twenty-four hours, or however long he was planning to hold Alaska whether he pressed charges or not.
Old Langley the softie doesn’t want it on his conscience if something happens to Eli in the meantime.
Phew.
I hoped that’s how this would go, but I couldn’t be sure.
“Scout’s honor, sir.” Alaska nods gravely.
“Hey!” the other guy splutters. “How come he gets out?”
“Because he’s got a kid,” Langley barks. “And because I know who he is, at least. Done some good work around town this past year. You? Never seen you before in my life. So I think I’ve got some questions for you.”
Yeah.
So do I.
Like just how much Paisley Lockwood knows and what she’s aiming to do to me over it.
While Langley struts over to the cell and lets Alaska out, I try not to be too obvious about studying the other guy. Committing his face to memory, just in case.
Of course, I eavesdrop a little, too. Murmurs boil between Langley and Alaska—something about telling Holt that they’re even, now.
Oh.
So that’s the other reason he gave in.
He’s still feeling guilty for locking Holt up back when there was a madman running around town one winter, targeting Holt’s brother.
And since Holt is Alaska’s boss, well...it makes sense.
I’ll have to find a way to thank Holt without letting him know what I’m talking about.
Once we’re outside, though, Alaska flashes me a grateful, tired smile that’s darkened by his pained grimace and the way the swelling around his eye pulls at his entire face. “Thanks. That was some quick thinking in there.”
I half smile. “Couldn’t let you take the fall over my crap.”
“No,” he says, grim and low, and lifts his head to look back toward the police station, where it looks like—through the glass door—Langley continues berating the other guy. “This is my mess.”
I don’t understand.
I don’t understand at all.
But now isn’t the time or the place to ask.
“C’mon,” I say. “I’ll take you to your Jeep.”
“Not yet.” He shakes his head. “We’ll need it for cover.”
Cover?
I don’t ask. Not yet. Not now.
I just get in my station wagon and wait for Alaska to settle in the passenger seat that barely fits him before I pull onto the road, setting my path for Charming Inn.
He’s silent next to me, looking out the window with an expression I’ve never seen before, troubled and stormy and heavy.
I swear his eye swells up more by the minute, but if it hurts, he doesn’t seem to notice.
Yeah, there’s definitely something more happening beyond my problems, even if I have a feeling it might still be my fault.
This is my curse.
This is my poison.
This is what I feared.
And this is why I never should’ve dragged Alaska Charter into my life.
All I can ever do is ruin him.
