Amarok climbed down the ladder. “Were there any vehicles behind you?”
“None that followed us for any length of time, and none once we got away from Hilltop. That would’ve been pretty obvious.”
True, but Amarok had to eliminate the possibility. “Where did you go while you were in Anchorage?”
“Nowhere of any consequence. We wanted to see the touristy stuff—Denali and the glaciers—but the tours close down in mid-September. We missed all that. So we simply tried to experience Anchorage like the locals would for a day and a half while preparing for our hunt. Then we came here. We’re supposed to move on to Juneau tomorrow morning.”
Amarok didn’t say it out loud, but he figured they wouldn’t be finishing the trip. “If someone had followed you, my guess is they would’ve struck before now. Why wait for your last day?”
“Exactly. There’s nowhere close by to watch what’s going on here, so one day would seem as good as the next. It’s not as if this was the first day she was alone.”
“Your sister doesn’t have any problems with drugs or alcohol?”
Leland seemed frustrated by his own emotions as he wiped the dampness from his cheeks again. “No. She doesn’t drink more than an occasional beer or glass of wine. She’s not a party girl, if that’s what you’re thinking. She’s a reader. That’s what she did while we were out; she read—and she was happy to do it.”
“So she’s not someone who would ever purposely harm herself?”
“Absolutely not! If you want to know what she’s like, I can tell you. She’s solid. Smart. Kind. She—” He choked up and had to stop talking.
This guy hadn’t hurt his sister; he loved her.
Amarok touched Leland’s arm. “I’m going to do everything I can to find her.”
Still too overcome to speak, he nodded.
“How did she get along with your friends?” Amarok asked as he looked through closets and drawers and under all the beds. He didn’t come across a single questionable thing.
Leland replied without hesitation. “Great. We’ve known Peter for most of our lives. He lived down the street when we were growing up. She met Ted just before we left Louisiana, but they were cool, too.”
“There was no romantic interest between her and either friend?”
“None. Peter and Ted are both married, and she’s engaged.”
That didn’t necessarily mean anything, but Leland seemed convinced. “And you were with them all day. There was never a time they were out of your sight?”
Leland grimaced. “I don’t like the implication. They’re my best friends. They’d never hurt her.”
“Good to know,” Amarok said. “But the question stands—was there ever a time they were out of your sight?”
Sierra’s brother raked his fingers through his fine blond hair. “No. They were with me every minute. They couldn’t have snuck back.”
“Okay. Let’s take a look at the back door—and the woodshed.” There had to be something here that would tell a story, provide a clue. Amarok had been a police officer for ten years. Not long as most careers went. But he’d seen some crazy shit when it came to the outdoorsmen who visited from the Lower 48—stupid, drunken antics where one guy or a couple of guys put themselves or others in danger. He’d never encountered a situation like this one, though. One so inexplicable …
Leland led him back through the cabin. Sierra’s brother must’ve gained control of his grief and fear while Amarok studied the splintered wood where the door on to the back porch had been pried open. When he spoke, he sounded steady, less in danger of breaking down. “It would take some strength to force that door.”
More strength than his sister possessed?
Amarok raised his voice, as Leland had done, in order to be heard over the bluster of the storm. “Can you show me where the ax was when you first noticed it?” Right now, it was leaning against the back of the house, visible in the dim glow of the porch light. But that wasn’t where Leland claimed to have found it when he’d first mentioned it in the truck, which meant it’d been moved.
As that thought registered, Amarok bit back a curse. If this was a crime scene, having three hunters stomping through the house, touching, moving and dripping on everything, wasn’t going to make his job any easier.
“There.” Leland pointed at the rough wooden planks that served as the porch floor, about five feet away.
Amarok rubbed the beard growth on his chin. He hoped this wasn’t what he feared. Two years ago, the owner of the Moosehead had stumbled upon a severed head behind his bar. That had launched Amarok’s very first murder investigation. He didn’t want to be in charge of another one. “Did the ax look as though it’d been dropped? Or was it placed there?” he yelled above the shriek of the wind.
“Dropped. Discarded in a hurry,” Leland replied.
Pulling his flashlight from his utility belt, Amarok squatted to take a closer look. He couldn’t see any blood or human tissue on the blade. Thank God. He hadn’t noticed any blood inside the cabin, either, and he’d been looking for it. That gave him hope Sierra hadn’t yet been the victim of foul play, but it also deepened the mystery. If someone had broken into the cabin with the intention of harming Leland’s sister, where was the evidence that she’d been hurt? The blood spatter? The body?
Or had she been dragged off to another location?
That was possible except there were no signs of a struggle. And how did the perpetrator know she was here alone and it was safe to strike? Why would he risk coming out in such a terrible storm when Leland, Peter and Ted could return at any moment? And what did he stand to gain by harming her?
Some killers enjoyed inflicting pain on others, killed for pleasure—like most of the psychopaths Evelyn studied. But Amarok was trying not to let his mind automatically shoot off in that direction. There were over three hundred psychopaths, many of them serial killers, at Hanover House, which wasn’t far.
But they were all supposed to be locked up.
He needed to bag the ax, see if he could get any finger prints off it, but he’d left his forensic kit in the truck so he could walk through the cabin first, discover what he could from a macro perspective.
Unfortunately, he’d discovered much less than he’d hoped. “Did your sister have any known enemies?”
Leland blew on his hands. He wore no gloves. Wasn’t wearing a hat, either. He didn’t seem concerned about the cold; he was too worried about his missing sister to let the weather distract him.
Amarok wore the hat that went with his uniform in the colder months, the one he could Velcro at the chin to keep his face warm, but that didn’t help his hands. Since he knew he’d be entering what could be a crime scene, he’d put on a pair of latex gloves instead of his heavier GORE-TEX ones, and boot covers.
“No enemies,” Leland replied. “Even if she did, they’d be back in Louisiana. This is the farthest she’s ever been from where she was born. I can’t believe anyone would follow us to Alaska to snatch her. It would make more sense to stay in Louisiana and follow her home from work one night. She lives alone.”
It was a long shot, but if the killer thought murdering her in Alaska would make the crime easier to get away with he or she could’ve hopped on a plane. If someone had kidnapped her, it might be someone with whom she’d shared the details of her trip.
Louisiana to Alaska would be a long way to come, but Amarok had heard of crazier things, and he had to start his investigation somewhere. Hilltop was the closest town, but he knew all the locals and knew them well. None of them would seriously harm a young woman. Besides hunting and fishing infractions, which were a big part of his job in the summer months, he typically dealt with bar fights, petty theft and domestic disturbances. Anything worse had always been tied to outsiders.
Or Hanover House …
He hated to jump to conclusions. He’d made that mistake before. But had one of the dangerous criminals Evelyn studied somehow escaped?