Slow Burn by Starlight

Chapter 2

Two

Where the devil did that accent come from? Alastair stifled a laugh, which he did a lot around her. Call it the Ruthie Effect, since he never really knew what was going to come out of her mouth. That was one of the reasons he’d struck up a friendship with her. He’d known a lot of women in his time, but no one quite like Ruthie Malone.

He had to give Ralphie credit. The guy didn’t blink an eye. Maybe he was used to being called “thoroughly delightful” in proper Queen’s English. Wouldn’t surprise Alastair a bit.

“Sweet,” Ralphie said, ambling inside and closing the door behind him. He didn’t even let it slam, so another point for the fisherman. “Looking good, Ruthie. I almost didn’t recognize you at first. The hair gave it away, though.”

Looking self-conscious, Ruthie touched her glorious flame-like mane. According to her, she’d looked like Orphan Annie as a kid, but she’d done some kind of treatment in New York that made the curls relax and brought out the shine. “My hair doesn’t look exactly the same, does it, Ralphie?”

“No way. It used to look like carrots, but now it looks like…beets.”

The expression on Ruthie’s face made Alastair stifle another laugh. Poor girl, this probably wasn’t going quite the way she’d imagined.

Ralphie continued. “But no one else around here has hair even close to yours. It looks great, Ruthie. You look great. It’s good to have you back in Lost Harbor.”

Ruthie lit up like an electric light that had just gotten plugged in. “That’s so nice of you, Ralphie.”

He came forward and they exchanged a hug. To Alastair’s eyes, it looked like a friendly embrace, but who knew how it seemed to Ruthie. Maybe she’d build some kind of fantasy around it that involved Ralphie dropping to his knees and proposing on the spot.

Should he stick around and try to protect her from her own self-delusions? For some reason, she’d talked herself into the hope that Ralphie Reed, who was essentially “community peen”—he’d just recently learned that American phrase—might be her soul-mate-in-waiting.

Odd that Ruthie Malone, who could be so brilliant in some areas, was so oblivious to Ralphie’s flaws.

On the other hand, maybe she knew him better than Alastair did. Maybe that childhood connection really did mean something. He wouldn’t know; his childhood had ended early and he’d left it behind long ago.

“Enjoy your dinner, you two.” He strode toward the door as they ended their embrace. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that Ruthie’s face was flushed and her glasses askew. In lace-up boots and a hunter-green dress that hugged her generous figure, she looked sexy as hell. Ralphie would be a fool to dismiss her.

And she’d be a fool not to dismiss him. She could do so much better, in his opinion. But it was none of his business, so he kept on going through the door.

“Groovy sounds, Ruthie,” was the last thing he heard as he left. “Is that like, ancient Irish or something?”

Lifting his eyes toward the magnificent sunset sky, Alastair muttered under his breath, “Or something.” He trotted down the concrete steps to the grass, then took a short detour to one of the wooden benches Chrissie had installed along the bluff. Her vision—which he’d signed onto when he agreed to be her chef for the time being—was to mix frontier history with a deep appreciation of the stunning natural beauty of this area.

It had definitely stunned him from the very moment he’d first seen the craggy mountains and deep glaciers of Lost Souls Wilderness. Two years later, it still drew him, more powerfully than ever. He’d tried leaving a few times, but he kept returning. Something kept drawing him back here.

Which was strange, because his original reason for coming here didn’t exist anymore. He’d wanted answers about his sister Carole’s fatal plane crash. Carole, twelve years older than him, had become his guardian when their parents had died. She’d been his only family, so when a rich New Yorker had swept her off her feet at the pub where she worked, her little brother had been part of the deal.

After trying and failing to get pregnant, she and Anthony Berenson decided to adopt. Their search for a baby took them to Alaska—to the Aurora Lodge, where a newborn was awaiting them. But they’d never come home. Their twin-engine plane had disappeared in Lost Souls Wilderness. It was presumed to have crashed, with no survivors.

At seventeen, Alastair was alone in the world.

Tony’s brother Tate had taken the reins of the Berenson estate. None of the Berensons had ever accepted him; they saw him and Carole as a threat to their eventual inheritances. Within a month, Tate told him he was on his own.

With nowhere else to go and no money to get there, Alastair had stayed in New York and scrambled to find work. He’d done a bit of everything until he got hired at a four-star restaurant uptown. Busboy, then sous-chef, then chef. Job, apartment, girls…bit by bit, things had fallen into place.

He’d always assumed that someone would eventually find out exactly what happened to Carole and Anthony’s plane, but the years passed and he’d heard nothing. It haunted him. Carole had always been there for him, and it killed him to think that no one was solving her case. Was it an accident? Weather problem? Sabotage? The Berenson family was a snake pit, so in his darkest moments he’d wondered if one of them had something to do with it.

Finally, fifteen years after Carole disappeared, he’d decided to find out for himself. He’d taken some vacation time from the restaurant and flown to Lost Harbor and then on to the Aurora Lodge in Lost Souls Wilderness, the last place where Carole and Tony had been seen.

Finding the truth had taken more than his efforts alone. Maya Badger, the Lost Harbor police chief, had played a big part, as had Ethan James, a local investigator. They’d discovered that the real story was even wilder than any of his theories.

The Berensons’ plane had been shot down by a vengeful Russian crime boss. That man had been trying to reclaim his baby daughter, who happened to be the child that Carole and Tony were hoping to adopt.

It still sickened Alastair to think about. Loving, tenderhearted Carole, who’d always wanted a family, shot down from the sky while trying to adopt a baby—it was horrifying.

So why did he keep coming back to the place where Carole had died?

The locals had a saying—“Strange things happen around Lost Souls Wilderness.” It was as good an explanation as any.

He settled himself on the bench and stretched out his legs. Right over there, across the darkening waters of Misty Bay, lay the dense forests of Lost Souls Wilderness. Her plane had gone down deep inside the wilderness, in a spot he couldn’t see from here. But for some reason it comforted him to be close to where she’d died.

Carole’s death had turned him into a bit of a lost soul himself. She was the only person in the world who had loved him and supported him. After the crash, he’d been forced to grow up almost instantly. He’d learned to rely on himself and his own gut.

His gut had brought him here. He’d accomplished his mission. He’d gotten the answers he needed. But now his gut kept bringing him back. Was there another piece of the puzzle missing? Was there more to the mystery? Something Berenson-related? The question still haunted him.

Either way, New York was hot and sticky in the summer. It had a serious lack of glaciers and mountain ranges. So why not hang out in Lost Harbor for a while? He could relax here in a way that he couldn’t in New York.

Usually.

“You’ve been served.”

He jolted to attention as a voice spoke from behind him. In the next moment, Ethan James dropped onto the bench beside him and handed him a certified letter.

“What the hell?” he growled at the lanky private investigator. “What is this?”

“Someone’s been trying to reach you and they got fed up. Finally hired me.”

“I thought we were friends. Jay-sus.”

“I figured if it’s bad news, better to have a friend around, no?” Ethan grinned at him. He’d first met Ethan in Lost Souls Wilderness, when they’d been pursuing two different pathways to the same unsolved mystery.

“What if? Of course it’s got to be bad news. Nothing good comes in an envelope that looks like this.” He waved the certified letter in the air. “I’m tempted to toss it off the bluff.”

“Please don’t make me climb any rocks to complete my mission. Jessica made some smoked salmon and I’d like to be around to enjoy it.” Ethan, lucky dog, was engaged to the owner of the Sweet Harbor Bakery. It always seemed odd that a cynical detective like Ethan could get on so well with a sunny person like Jessica. Maybe it was true that opposites attract.

Alastair sighed and examined the return address on the letter. Carlin, Trout and Shapiro, Attorneys at Law. The address was Park Avenue in Manhattan. Fancy. And come to think of it, the name rang a distant bell. He’d heard it before, but a long time ago, as if in another lifetime.

“Did they give any clue what this is all about?” he asked Ethan.

“Nope. But if it helps, the paralegal who hired me has high hopes for the Yankees this year. Read into it what you will.”

Alastair chuckled, then sobered. “You know what I like about Lost Harbor?”

“No Yankees to hate on?”

“That, and the fact that here you can imagine the rest of the world no longer exists. Then you come along and ruin the whole illusion.”

Ethan clapped a hand on his shoulder. “That’s my job. Keeping it real. If you really want to hide from the world, get your ass back to Lost Souls Wilderness. But if you do stick around, Jess wants you to come to dinner soon. She wants to start having dinner parties. You know, like they do on Park Avenue.”

Alastair snorted. “You don’t fool me. I know exactly what Jess is up to.”

Shrugging, Ethan got to his feet, favoring his left leg as always. “If you want to pass up a chance to meet some eligible, single Lost Harbor ladies, that’s up to you. But she told me to mention that she’s making Coquilles Saint Jacques. She said you’d know what that is.”

Alastair’s mouth watered. Even as a professional chef, he’d learned a thing or two about cooking seafood from the locals here. “With locally sourced scallops?”

“I don’t speak chef, but if you mean were they caught by local fishermen, I’m sure they were.”

“Harvested,” Alastair corrected him, just to f**k with him.

“What?”

“You don’t ‘catch’ scallops. You scrape them off the ocean floor. It’s called ‘harvesting,’ and there, now you speak chef.”

“And to think I sometimes wonder why you’re still single,” Ethan muttered.

Alastair laughed. “It’s definitely not for lack of trying on Jessica’s part. When did I become her matchmaking project?”

“Oh, don’t worry, it’s not just Jessica. I think they’re all in on it. Even Toni.”

That name brought a little twinge of…something. He’d been interested in the sassy Olde Salt Saloon bartender, but her heart so clearly belonged to her teenage crush Bash Rivers that he’d let that go right quick. Now they worked together at the brewery, so all in all, he was glad he hadn’t really fallen for her.

Speaking of childhood crushes…

“What’s the story with Ruthie and Ralphie?” he asked Ethan.

“Ruthie Malone and Ralphie Reed? I didn’t know there was one. Are they…dating? Seems like an odd match.”

“I’m not sure you would call it that.” He caught the spark of interest in Ethan’s eyes and regretted that he’d ever mentioned it. He shouldn’t be discussing Ruthie’s business with anyone except Ruthie. Not that there was any point in talking to her, either. Her mind was made up when it came to Ralphie.

“Want me to check into him?”

Alastair shook off the idea. “God, no. What’s to check into? He’s an open book. With a lot of pages filled with many, many women.”

Ethan laughed and shouldered the vintage Army messenger bag he’d brought the certified letter in. “True that. All right, I’ll see you at the dinner party. By the way, I believe Ruthie’s on the guest list too.”

“Good to know.”

Probably a good reason to skip it, Alastair thought as he watched Ethan lope toward the roped-off gravel area where everyone parked their cars. He spent enough time with Ruthie at work. Seeing her at a party might be…awkward. It would almost feel like cheating on his work wife with the nonwork version of Ruthie.

Except that knowing her, most likely there was no difference between the work and nonwork Ruthie. She was such a nerd—in the best possible meaning of the term. Nothing got her motor running like a historical discovery or a cool Lost Harbor artifact—except maybe a new organizational system.

Or Ralphie Reed.

A muscle ticked in his jaw as he thought about the “date” going on inside the lighthouse. Was there any chance a guy like Ralphie would appreciate a quirky-verging-on-eccentric woman like Ruthie Malone? Every time he’d seen the fisherman around town—at the Olde Salt, at Gretel’s Cafe, at the movie theater—he’d had a girl with him. A pretty girl. Not that Ruthie wasn’t pretty, but that word didn’t adequately describe her. Ruthie was entirely in her own category. She was just…Ruthie.

Would Ralphie be able to see that? Would he appreciate her nerdy nature and odd obsessions? Would he notice that she had a tattoo of the Dewey decimal number for her favorite books, the Gormenghast series? And one of an owl feather? She probably had more ink in places he hadn’t seen. She’d told him that she’d chosen them in New York with very careful deliberation, focusing on totems and runes that helped to ground her.

He shook off his worry. Ruthie was a grown woman and everyone was entitled to their mistakes. He’d certainly made plenty of his own, especially during the phase in which he’d worked through his lonely grief with the help of an endless parade of women.

Maybe he and Ralphie had more in common than he liked to think.

He remembered the envelope in his hand and debated whether to chuck it over the edge the way he’d threatened. Maybe he should have stayed in Lost Souls Wilderness in the tiny cabin that wasn’t on any map. No law firm could find him there.

A cold drop of rain landed on his head, then another. Even in late summer, the rain here in Alaska could chill you to the bone. But it also served as a wake-up call. Open the damn envelope before you freeze your ass off out here.

Carlin, Trout and Shapiro. Now he remembered where he’d heard the name. It was one of Anthony Berenson’s law firms. He used several for different purposes—business, philanthropy, personal. Which was this one?

He didn’t remember, but the name gave him a sinking feeling in his stomach. If this had anything to do with his sister, it couldn’t be good. The last few years of trying to find answers had been an ordeal littered with lawyers, law enforcement, and other obstacles.

Best get it over with.

He tugged at the tab at the top of the envelope and ripped it open. Peering inside, he saw a single sheet of letterhead paper. Was he being sued for something? The Berensons were very litigious, or at least prone to threats of lawsuits. So far they hadn’t actually sued him, but maybe his luck had run out and they’d come up with some obscure grievance to turn into a lawsuit.

He withdrew the sheet of paper and shielded it with the envelope while he scanned it. “Alastair Arthur Dougal, this is your official notification of…”

Stunned, he read to the end. “What the devil…”