“How are you?”
“Fine,” he muttered. Although he’d certainly been better. He’d had to stash the two bodies that were in his truck in a vacant field not far from the prison. The road to Anchorage hadn’t opened in time for him to make it home and back; as far as he knew the road still wasn’t open. He’d considered calling in sick so he could properly dispose of his cargo, but he’d worried that would actually be a greater risk. He didn’t want to be even slightly conspicuous, so he’d forced himself to come in, and he was glad he did. Tex, the CO who’d seen him rip up that inmate’s picture yesterday, had already ratted on him. He’d just had his ass chewed out by the warden. Missing work would only have given his superiors another reason to be upset with him.
The thought of Tex helped Jasper control his reaction to Evelyn. Tex was someone else he needed to get even with—and he would.
“I’m glad to hear it,” she said.
He let himself glance over at her. He loved her eyes. They were the prettiest shade of hazel he’d ever seen. None of the other women he’d murdered in her place could match her beauty or her poise. None of them had her intelligence or strength of spirit, either. They’d been a diversion, nothing more. Soon he wouldn’t have to worry about coming up with a good substitute.
“So you’re adjusting to Alaska?” she asked. “You like it up here?”
The elevator dinged and the doors whooshed open. “I do. I love it here, don’t you?”
“I like a lot of things about it,” she said as they walked off. “Where did you live before you came here?”
Although he could still hear her Boston accent, he’d worked hard to eradicate his. The length of time he’d been gone helped. “I was born in Florida.” That wasn’t what she’d meant, but Amarok had figured out that he was responsible for the five women murdered in Peoria, and although hearing that a relatively new CO named Andy Smith was from the Phoenix area wouldn’t necessarily set off any alarm bells, Jasper preferred not to draw the connection in the first place. His work experience was on his application. She’d see it if she ever looked over his employee file. But he assumed she’d have to go through the warden to gain access and was hoping she wouldn’t be curious enough to go that far.
“I’ve never spent much time there,” she said. “Is that where you worked before?”
He couldn’t lie outright. If the truth ever came to her attention, that would be an even bigger red flag than telling her he’d just moved from Arizona. He had to answer. But as soon as he opened his mouth, a CO named Chad Peirano hurried up to them.
“Dr. Talbot. There you are! I was just coming to find you. Bobby Knox is pitching a fit that you’re not there. He says if you have no respect for his time, he doesn’t want to talk to you. Should we take him back to his cell?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m almost there now. I’ll meet with him, see if I can’t make the session useful in spite of his irritation.”
Jasper was already moving away from her when she glanced back at him. “I won’t hold you up any longer,” he said, and waved as she started following Chad in the opposite direction.
*
Sierra Yerbowitz had an abusive fiancé. While Amarok wasn’t exactly excited by the news, he was somewhat relieved. Maybe her disappearance wouldn’t be so difficult to solve, after all. And maybe whatever had gone wrong at the cabin had nothing to do with Hanover House—or Hilltop, either. After the past couple of years, Amarok felt he deserved a break. Evelyn even more so. Ready answers, answers that gave her no reason to fear, would help. He hoped that if he could keep her world stable, and she didn’t always have to deal with so much drama, she’d agree to marry him.
He was sure Leland would appreciate knowing what had happened, too, even if it wasn’t the outcome anyone hoped for. And achieving a quick resolution was sounding more and more promising. Amarok had one of Sierra’s coworkers on the phone—Loni Loose (an unfortunate last name for a woman, in his estimation)—who’d immediately pointed a finger at Sierra’s fiancé, the long-distance trucker Leland had told him about. Loni said if anything had happened to Sierra, Allen Call was most likely to blame.
“Leland seems to think Call’s a pretty stand-up guy.” Amarok held the phone to his ear as he rocked back in his chair at the trooper post, relaxing for the first time since Leland and his buddies had hit town last night. He hadn’t questioned Leland extensively about Sierra’s relationship with her fiancé, but only because Leland had acted as though Allen would be devastated if anything had happened to her, just like the rest of her family and friends.
Loni seemed to have a different take on the relationship. “Of course he does. She can’t tell Leland about all the shit Allen puts her through. Leland would try to stop her from marrying him if she did. Her whole family would step in.”
“But she talked to you about Call’s behavior.”
“She talked to all of us here at the salon.”
Amarok propped his feet up on his desk. “How bad did it get?”
“He’s knocked her around a bit. I know that. One time I had to completely redo her nails because she’d broken three trying to shut him out of her bedroom.”
“Did she ever show up at the salon with any nasty cuts, bruises, that sort of thing?”
“Nothing too bad. But he definitely had a temper.”
He was hoping for more proof.… “Did she ever have to call the police? File charges against him?”
“I don’t think so. But when they got into an argument a few weeks ago, he stopped the car at the side of the road and literally pushed her out onto the pavement. She scraped both her knees. We tried to convince her to break up with him, get him out of her life. She said she wasn’t hurt that badly, that he’d apologized and would never do it again.”
Amarok lowered his feet and sat up. Scraped knees were a far cry from murder, but maybe he had to dig a little deeper. “I don’t mean to make light of those injuries, but do you know if he ever did anything worse?”
“I have no idea what she might’ve hidden from us. She was always complaining about his temper. She’d get so nervous if she thought he might be upset with her about something. We all hate him.”
“I’m not saying this is the case, because I don’t know yet, but if this comes down to the worst, would you say he’s capable of murder, Ms. Loose? Could you see him traveling all the way to Alaska to kill her?”
After a slight hesitation, she said, “I hope not. We all love Sierra and we’re praying she comes back safe. But he might know something. He didn’t want her to take the trip, never wants her to go anywhere without him.”
“Maybe she was fed up and trying to break things off.” Amarok thought that would make it even more believable, but Loni quickly disabused him of that notion.
“No, she would’ve told us. She was still planning the wedding.”
Amarok refused to let his surge of optimism fade. “Was there anyone else in her life who might have reason to harm her?”
“Her ex-boyfriend still calls her. He’s been trying to get her back. Maybe”—her voice broke—“maybe he decided he’d rather see her dead than married to another man.”
Picking up the pen he’d used to jot down the number of the salon, Amarok rolled closer to his desk and waited, giving Loni a chance to bring her emotions under control. “How do you know he was trying to get her back?”