Jenna had been yawning off and on for the past hour or so and checking her watch, but Alex knew her friend was too polite to bail on her. Selfishly, Alex wanted to prolong their visit. She had insisted on the pie and one last beer, had even fed a couple of quarters to the jukebox so she had the excuse to wait for her song to play before they left.
Anything to avoid going home to her empty house.
She missed her dad, now more than ever. For so long, he had been her closest friend and confidant. He'd been her strong, willing, and capable protector when the world around her had been turned upsidedown by violence. He would be the only one who'd understand the unspeakable fears that were swirling in her now. He'd be the only one she could turn to, the only one who could tell her that everything would be all right and almost convince her that he believed it.
Now, except for her dog, she was alone, and she was terrified.
The urge to pull up stakes and run from what she'd seen that awful day at the Toms settlement was almost overwhelming. But where to? If running from Florida to Alaska hadn't been far enough to escape the monsters that lurked in her memories, then where could she possibly hope to escape them next?
"You gonna twirl that fork all night, or are you going to have some of this pie?" Jenna downed the last of her beer and set the bottle on the rough wood table with a soft thump. "You wanted dessert, but you're making me eat most of it."
"Sorry," Alex murmured as she put down her fork. "I guess I wasn't as hungry as I thought I was."
"Everything okay, Alex? If you need to talk about what happened the other night at the meeting, or out at the Toms place--"
"No. I don't want to talk about it. What's to say anyway? Shit happens, right? Bad things happen to good people all the time."
"Yeah, they do," Jenna said quietly, her eyes dimming under the glare of the tin lamp overhead.
"Listen, I was over at Zach's for a little while this afternoon. Sounds like the Alaska State Troopers in Fairbanks have their hands full at the moment, but they'll be sending a unit out to us in a few days. In the meantime, they discovered video footage of the crime scene on the Internet, of all places. Some ass**le apparently went out there with a cell phone camera not long after you'd been there, then uploaded the video to an illegal site that allegedly pays a hundred bucks for actual blood-and-guts material." Alex sat forward in her chair, her attention snapped sharply back into focus to hear a confirmation of what Kade had told her out at the Toms place. "Do they know who?"
Jenna rolled her eyes and gestured toward the game room, where a small group of the local stoners were shooting darts.
"Skeeter Arnold," Alex said, unsurprised that the slacker, perpetually unemployed yet never without a drink in one hand and a smoke in the other, would be the one so lacking in respect for the dead that he would sell them out for a few dollars. "What a bastard. And to think that he and Teddy Toms had been hanging out together quite a bit before ..."
She couldn't finish the sentence; the reality was still too raw. Jenna nodded. "Skeeter has a way of latching on to kids he can manipulate. He's a user and a loser. I've been telling Zach for the past year or more that I have a hunch the guy is pushing drugs and alcohol on the dry Native populations. Unfortunately, cops need to have this sticky thing called evidence before they arrest and prosecute, and Zach keeps reminding me that all I have on Skeeter Arnold is suspicion." arrest and prosecute, and Zach keeps reminding me that all I have on Skeeter Arnold is suspicion." Alex watched her friend, seeing the tenacity sparking in Jenna's eyes. "Do you miss it? Being a cop, I mean."
"Nope." Jenna frowned as though considering, then gave a firm shake of her head. "I couldn't do that job anymore. I don't want to be responsible for cleaning up someone else's tragedies or f**kups. Besides that, every time I'd walk up to a traffic accident, I'd be wondering whose heart was going to be torn apart once I called in my report. I don't have the stomach for police work now." Alex reached out and gave her friend's hand a gentle, understanding squeeze. "For what it's worth, I think you're a great cop, and that's because you do care. It was never just a job to you, and it showed. We need more people like you looking out for the rest of us. I keep thinking that maybe one day you'll go back to it."
"No," she replied, and through the link of their hands, Alex's inner sense told her that Jenna meant it.
"I lost my edge when I lost Mitch and Libby. Do you realize it will be four years later this week?"
"Oh, Jen."
Alex recalled very well the November night that took the lives of Jenna's trooper husband and their little girl. The whole family had been traveling home from a special dinner in Galena when an icy snow kicked up and sent their Blazer sliding into oncoming traffic. The eighteen-wheeler that hit them was hauling a full load on its oversize trailer--five tons of timber on its way to the Lower Forty-eight. Mitch had been driving the Blazer and was killed on impact. Libby held on for two days in the hospital, broken and bruised on life support, before her little body simply gave up. As for Jenna, she had lain in a coma for a month and a half, only to wake up to the terrible news that Mitch and Libby were gone.
"Everyone says that in time it won't hurt so bad. Give it time, and I'll be able to console myself with happy memories of what I had, not dwell on what I've lost." Jenna blew out a hitched breath as she withdrew her hand from Alex's loose grasp and picked at the label on her empty beer bottle. "It's been four years, Alex. Shouldn't I have some closure by now?"