But he could remember every single second of the flights out and back, and for once his memories had nothing to do with his fear of flying. He remembered Wy had her hair pulled back into a ponytail, the easier to wear the headset. He remembered hearing her laugh, loving the sound of it, and trying deliberately to provoke a repeat. He remembered the feeling of instant recognition when she introduced herself as his pilot, the brief feeling of incredulous dizziness when their hands clasped for the first time in greeting, the dismayed realization of instantaneous attraction, of sharp-edged, undeniable need.
A need that a four-day weekend in Anchorage had only whetted. A weekend that, due to Wy’s uncomfortable conscience, constituted the main portion of their affair, before she sent him back to his wife and son. They had parted in grief and in anger, and the first time they had seen each other again they had coupled in the front seat of her truck like a pair of randy teenagers.
Oh, yeah, the need was still there, as strong and as certain as it had ever been. Need wasn’t enough, though. Sometimes even love wasn’t enough. He used to know what was, but he was no longer as sure of himself as he had once been.
It was with relief that he pulled up in front of John’s house, where, to judge from the lack of parking spaces, there appeared to be a monster truck rally in progress, and consigned his personal life to a folder in the back of his mind markedLater. Wy would be there when he was ready to open it again.
John Kvichak’s house had started life as a dugout, a pit with sod walls and roof, and over the intervening hundred and fifty years had migrated up and out. One wall was log, another plywood with tar-paper shingles, the third and widest of round river rock that rose into a chimney that, however unsteady in construction, appeared to be functional, if the smoke pouring out of it was any indication. The fourth was a bright blue vinyl siding Liam tried to convince himself wasn’t the same shade as the new siding Seafood North sported across from the small boat harbor. On a drive-through of the dock area the day before, Liam had noticed that part of one wall of the cannery was still bare except for the Tyvek house wrap. Probably, he told himself, Seafood North had ordered short. Probably.
“Don’t look now; it’s Delinquentville,” Diana Prince said. “That’s Teddy’s Ranchero, isn’t it? And Kelley MacCormick’s Dakota? And Paul Urbano’s Cherokee Chief. What’s with those tires, anyway? He could drive over a moose without grazing the rack, the body sits so high.” She released her seat belt and looked at Liam. “The gang’s almost all here. You think they’re planning their next heist?”
“I hope not,” Liam said, and he meant it. He didn’t know Paul that well, but Teddy and John were the sole support of their families, and pretty good at it so long as they stayed sober. Mac MacCormick was fresh out of the hospital and was in no shape to do more time. “Might as well get it over with.”
He got out of the Blazer just in time to see Brewster Gibbons haul his Eddie Bauer Ford Explorer to a halt and bounce out. Gibbons must have been behind them the whole way and Liam had been so preoccupied that he hadn’t spotted him, which did not improve his temper. “Brewster,” he said, his voice very different from the irritating drawl he had used before, “what are you doing here? We don’t need you. Go home.”
“I didn’t think you were going to do anything.” Gibbons panted up, full of righteous wrath. “I came to warn them to stay away from my bank.”
“As you can see, it’s not necessary. We’re here, and we’ll handle it. Now go home.” To underscore his command, he stepped forward to take Gibbons’ arm and escort him back to the SUV. He even went so far as to open the door. With bad grace, Gibbons climbed in.
Liam caught Diana as she reached the porch, which along with the stairs up to it and the overhang looked brand-new, the wooden planks neatly lined up and not yet gray from weathering. Liam wondered who next would be pounding on the trooper post’s door to report a theft.
The door swung open.
“Hi, John,” Diana Prince began.
She didn’t have time to say anything else. The man standing in the door took one look at her uniform, another at Liam’s blue-clad bulk looming up behind her, said, “Oh, shit,” and vanished.
From behind him there was a panicked yell and some shouts and a lot of swearing and a rush of footsteps. Something crashed inside the room and the lights went out. There was a thump and a moan and some more swearing.
“Okay, guys, we’re coming in,” Diana Prince said, pushing the door wide and feeling for a wall switch. She found one. An overhead light revealed a terrified Teddy Engebretsen with something in his hand and that hand pulled back to throw. “What’s- Teddy? Teddy, what the hell is that? Teddy, don’t- Christ! Look out, sir!”
She ducked, and on instinct Liam followed suit. Something pale and elongated sailed over their heads.
There was a loudsmack! followed by a howl of outrage and the thump of a butt hitting the ground, hard.
Still crouching, Liam turned to look.
Brewster Gibbons was sitting on his fanny in the snow at the foot of the stairs, staring at the thing lying half on the bottom step and half on his lap. As Liam watched, he let out a yell and scuttled backward on his hands and feet. The thing slid from his lap and skidded across the icy path to bounce off the berm on one side and back off the other. “Keep it away from me! Keep it away from me!”
“What the hell?” Liam said, and went to investigate.
On closer inspection, he didn’t blame Brewster for yelling.
The object was a human arm, the left, severed above the elbow.
Its hand was clenched into a tight fist.
They were having a great time until Liam walked in.
Tim was a math whiz, and Gary, a building contractor, was showing him how to calculate how many trusses were needed to hold up the roof of your average split-level house. Jo was not helping by telling the story of the time Gary had made the family of a burned-out home wait through three tries before he got the truss size right.
“It wasn’t me; it was the fabricator,” Gary said in protest. “And in the interest of full disclosure,” he told Tim, “it took four tries for them to get it right. I was downtime thirteen days on that job.” He shook his head and drained his beer. “Plus the granite for the kitchen counter kept breaking. Hard to get quality work done right and on time in this state.”
“Unless they get you to do it,” Jo said, regarding him with a sister’s sapient eye.
Gary grinned and did not deny the accusation.
“So you build people’s houses,” Tim said.
“And remodel them.”
“Remodel?”
“Yeah, rip ’em apart and start over.”
“Like?”
Gary tucked into his New York strip. Wy had always appreciated an enthusiastic appetite, being a feeder herself. “I just finished up the remodel of a split-level home in Spenard. The owner has had the house for three years and she’s just getting around to correcting everything the previous owners did to it.”
“Like?”
Gary cut off another piece of steak and used it for punctuation. “Like, they put up teak paneling, and stained all the trim mahogany and took down the old kitchen shelves and put the new ones up wrong. In the bathroom, they walled off the window and put in a six-hundred-dollar wall-hung toilet, which leaked. Lucky there wasn’t any insulation between the floors.”