Face Off (The Evelyn Talbot Chronicles #3)

“The man she’s living with.”

Hearing the disapproval in Lara’s voice, Brianne frowned. “You know who Amarok is. What are you trying to say—that you don’t like him?”

“I’ve never even met him! She’s never brought him home to introduce us!”

Maybe Evelyn wasn’t ready. Brianne had made the mistake of bringing Jeff home, and her folks now cared about him. How was she going to tell them the wedding was off? That he would no longer be part of their lives and yet she was carrying his baby?

Suddenly unable to meet her mother’s eyes, Brianne picked at her cuticles. “She’s under a lot of pressure. She feels she can’t leave Hanover House or something might go wrong.”

“Because things go wrong even when she’s there! She was almost killed again last winter, and she still won’t quit. I don’t know what else has to happen before she realizes that whatever she’s hoping to achieve isn’t worth her life.”

Even more had happened in Hilltop than Grant and Lara knew—probably more than they all knew. Evelyn kept what she could from them. Lara was on antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs. Evelyn didn’t want to make their mother’s condition any worse. “Someone has to take a stand, do something to fight back.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Lara carefully folded the washrag over the edge of the sink. Obsessive as she was, everything had to be just so. “All the studies show that psychopaths can’t be rehabilitated.”

“Understanding how their minds work might help us find a way,” Brianne said, but she wasn’t sure why she was defending Evelyn. After all Evelyn had been through—after all the family had been through, starting with Evelyn’s abduction twenty-two years ago—Brianne felt Evelyn should leave that battle to someone else. She wanted theirs to be a regular family, wanted to have her only sibling back in Boston, partly because she missed her but also because she was tired of being the one who had to look out for their parents. She hated that she sometimes resented the sacrifices she had to make so Evelyn could stay in Alaska. Although their father was steady and easygoing, Lara was so needy. Jasper and what he’d done to Evelyn had broken Lara; she was too sensitive to withstand the anger, the loss, the lack of justice and resolution, and the constant worry.

“She’s been attacked so many times,” Lara was saying. “One day they’ll be sending her home in a box.”

When Brianne’s keys cut into her fingers, she realized she was squeezing them too tight. She’d been trying hard to support her parents and her sister, to let them all lead their own lives and choose their own paths. She filled in wherever and whenever she could. But Lara needed Evelyn at home. And with a baby coming, Brianne had to have a break from the pressure she felt from their parents. She couldn’t continue to manage everything she’d managed in the past. “I’ll talk to her,” she said. “She’s already done so much for the sake of psychology. Now that Hanover House is up and running and the critics have calmed down a bit … maybe that’ll be enough for her.”

Grant paused the TV. “If what happened last winter didn’t convince her, nothing will.”

Perhaps. And yet something had changed. Amarok had told her that a woman had gone missing from one of the hunting cabins in the area and Evelyn was struggling with the memories that evoked.

Brianne doubted he’d admit that or ask her to come to Alaska right away unless he was deeply concerned.

Maybe, considering all the recent developments, she’d be able to talk Evelyn into coming home.

*

Jasper tried to pretend he wasn’t paying attention to Amarok or Evelyn, that he was only at the Moosehead to have a drink like everyone else. It was Saturday night and they hadn’t received the snow they’d been expecting, so the bar was crowded. There were a lot of women—more than usual—but no one interested him like Evelyn. It’d always been that way. Her presence acted like a high-powered magnet, drawing his gaze back to her again and again.

He watched her smooth some hair off Amarok’s forehead before casually returning her hand to his thigh. Seeing them together, acting so familiar and demonstrative, bothered him. He hated Amarok, couldn’t bear the thought of Evelyn spreading her legs for him.

Jasper took another sip of his whiskey. He’d been so patient. For almost two years he’d mapped out his revenge. He’d worked at Florence Prison in Arizona to establish the appropriate work history, managed to get hired at Hanover House and made the move to Alaska, where he’d painstakingly worked to create a particular image and become part of the community. But then Leland and his party had come to the area and rented the worst cabin possible, setting off the series of events that had caused all Jasper’s plans to unravel. Watching everything go to hell agitated him so much he couldn’t continue to deny himself.

He needed a release, couldn’t wait any longer.

“Have you heard about that woman who’s gone missing?”

Jasper glanced over at the man sitting next to him. Terrell Hillerman, a fellow Hanover House employee, was also at the bar. Terrell was still in uniform, which suggested he’d just finished his shift and stopped in on his way home.

Jasper hadn’t come from the prison. He’d driven over from Anchorage, even though he didn’t work today. He hadn’t been able to make himself stay away. He was too interested in the investigation, too curious about what Amarok was finding. “What woman?” he asked, playing dumb.

“Don’t know her name. Came here from Louisiana as part of a hunting party.”

Jasper had thought he might see Leland at the bar or at least Leland’s friends. There wasn’t anything else to do in this town. But they weren’t there. “Did she wander away from the group and freeze to death? Encounter a bear? What?” He took another careless drink, as if anything worse than a “natural” death weren’t really a consideration.

“Hell if I know,” Terrell replied. “On my way to work, I saw the sergeant using an avalanche probe to search an area not far off the road, though. I’m guessing he thinks she’s dead.”

Jasper felt a muscle twitch in his cheek. Easy remembered where he’d picked up that piece of scalp?

That made Jasper feel as though he might have more to worry about than he cared to believe. The sergeant was only a step behind him. “Find anything?”

“Not that I know of.”

Because Jasper had made it back and removed the bodies, taken them on the other side of Anchorage, the northwest side, as he’d originally planned. “Sucks for the hunters she was with. Must’ve ruined their whole trip.”

The look he received from Terrell told him he’d missed a cue of some sort. That happened occasionally, since he didn’t feel what most other people did. “Ruined their trip?” Terrell echoed. “One of the hunters was her brother. I can’t believe he gives a damn about bagging a moose at this point. He just wants to find his sister alive and well.”

Jasper almost said it’d be funny if the moose had bagged the sister instead of the brother bagging the moose, almost chuckled at the image that presented in his mind. But he knew better than to actually make the joke. If Terrell was offended by what he’d said already, he wouldn’t think that was funny. “Of course. It’s a bummer all the way around.”

Fortunately, Terrell seemed to shrug off the gaffe. So many unique individuals lived on the final frontier that people seemed to be less critical overall.

“What’d the hunters do, go home?” Jasper wanted to keep Terrell talking, see if there was anything else he could learn.

“No. From what I’ve heard, they’re still here, hoping for some word.”