Alaskan Christmas Cold Case. Sarah Varland

can you tell me about the killer?”

      “He...” Janie trailed off. “There’s not much I know, to be honest, just suspicions. Speculations. I always wondered if he’d met us personally. Maybe it always feels personal when someone is after you and your friends. But I wondered.”

      “Have you seen him? Anything you know, we could use as a solid lead.”

      “No.”

      “We’ll need to put you in protective custody,” Noah was saying even as Janie shook her head.

      Erynn had known she would. That’s the kind of woman Janie was. Once her mind was made up, there’d be no changing it.

      “I’m going back home now. I just thought you should know.”

      Could they keep her? Charge her with something that would allow them to keep her safe? Even as the thoughts surfaced, Erynn shrugged them off. It was still a free country and if Janie didn’t want protection, they didn’t need to give it to her.

      Noah spoke again. “Then we’re officially charging you with obstruction of justice and you can come with me to the Moose Haven jail.”

      If she’d been able to feel even a smidgen more lighthearted, Erynn would have laughed. The Moose Haven jail was no more than two cells in the back of the police department, Wild West style, that the department had gotten built cheap.

      Still, it would work for what they needed, would do the job.

      “Are you arresting Erynn, also?”

      Erynn looked at Noah, met his eyes. Knew she owed him answers.

      “Not at this time.”

      She needed to talk to him tonight.

      “For now, come with me, please.”

      Noah had left over half an hour ago, had practically growled at her to “stay put.” She had, quite literally, and hadn’t moved from her desk.

      Janie.

      Her dad.

      This couldn’t be happening.

      Erynn laid her head in her hands, snapped it up again as she realized all the implications. They had Janie in custody because it was dangerous for her otherwise. What Erynn had realized but not fully felt the weight of until now was that if someone was after her old acquaintance...had killed another one of her former friends, if Janie was right and Michelle was the Ice Maiden...

      She wasn’t safe, either.

      She stood and walked to the window, put a hand on the flimsy mini-blinds as she looked out at the town of Moose Haven. She’d thought the assignment here years ago had worked out well. It was close enough to civilization to suit her—she wasn’t a “live in the Alaskan bush” kind of girl, but it was far enough from Anchorage to make her believe she could get away from the demons, both real and imagined, chasing her.

      But she hadn’t gotten away. Not really. Erynn closed the blinds, moved back to the hallway and headed toward the front to close the other blinds. And lock the door. Noah could call or knock when he got there. She checked her watch. Her shift was over in ten minutes. Trooper Miller, a new transfer fresh out of the academy, should be in to relieve her at any minute.

      The door opened just then and Miller walked in. “Whoa, you don’t look so good.”

      The kid had barely met the minimum age requirement for the troopers—at least, that was Erynn’s guess. He made her feel light-years old and, at just barely thirty, she didn’t appreciate it.

      “Not feeling so great, to be honest.”

      “Go ahead and head out. I’ve got this.”

      “I’ll wait till it’s officially time.” Miller was a decent kid so far, and Erynn trusted him, but he wasn’t the stickler for protocol that older officers she’d worked with had been. Good for some situations, not that she’d admit that on the record, but bad for others.

      Noah still hadn’t showed by the time she was ready to head home. Erynn hesitated half a second at the door then shook her head and went outside. She’d been a State Trooper for years. She’d taken self-defense courses, had a sidearm on her right side concealed under her windbreaker right now.

      She wasn’t technically in any more danger than she had been for years. She had known she’d never truly be safe.

      Not until the Ice Maiden Killer—who, it seemed, was also the Foster Kid Killer—was in custody.

      “What are you doing?”

      Noah’s voice was hard as she came around the corner of the building and almost ran into him.

      “I can’t stay here all night.” Not that she’d sleep at home. Maybe she should stay here, sleep on the office couch, but it would invite too many questions. Her job was one of the only things she had left, was the most important part of her life. She couldn’t lose it, too.

      “I told you to stay put.”

      Maybe it was the coldness in his voice. Maybe it was the fact that the day had had more surprises than she could handle on the amount of sleep she was running on currently, but she’d lost all her patience.

      “You aren’t in charge of me, Noah. I’m an adult and make my own decisions.”

      “I want to hear more about why she’d say you’d obstructed justice. And why you didn’t deny a word of it.”

      She turned to him, mouth open, but nothing came out. She didn’t know what she wanted to say anyway, just couldn’t believe he was looking at her that way.

      Like she was guilty of something.

      Her shoulders fell. At the very least, she could assure him that wasn’t the case—though, yes, it would have been better for her to have spoken up three years ago when the Ice Maiden case had come across their desks. She could have told him that she’d worried that Janie’s “death” had been the work of the Foster Kid Killer, as Janie dying accidentally when so many people she’d known had been killed had seemed too coincidental to her. But when the other officers had ruled it an accidental death, something far too common in the Alaskan wilderness, she’d hoped it was true. Thought maybe she was paranoid. Hadn’t wanted to believe they were all wrong and she was right.

      It had been murder.

      But she hadn’t obstructed justice. She’d just...stayed quiet. Erynn rubbed a hand across her forehead, winced against the throbbing of her building headache. She’d wanted so badly to be free from the fear, that entire chapter of her life, that she’d ignored the coincidence it would have been that a former foster kid she’d known had ended up dead.

      She exhaled. “Okay. Where do you want to go?”

      “My house.”

      She nodded. “I’ll follow you there.”

      “No. You can ride with me.”

      She didn’t have the energy to argue.

      Noah did not have anything to say on their drive. What was there to say? “Hi, I’m Noah Dawson. Who are you really?” He’d known the woman for five years and she’d never once mentioned a connection to a serial killer case in Anchorage, or the fact that her life was ever in danger at all. She’d acted like a Moose Haven native, hanging out at the diner, doing the polar plunge into the bay in January, but she had secrets.

      He’d never even imagined that. Maybe that’s why it hurt so much.

      He turned down the gravel drive to his place, stealing a glance at Erynn as he parked the car.

      She was just