Alaskan Mountain Pursuit Elizabeth Goddard (best short novels .TXT) 📖

walked in on a weird part of the conversation I was having with Tyler.” Clay had never been one to beat around the bush.

“You’re leaving. I get it.”

“Not now. And I don’t know if I want to. Anymore.”

She looked at him, then shook her head. “You’ve got to be a police officer again, Clay. You’re too good at this to run from it forever.”

“Who says I’m running?”

“Aren’t you?” She met his gaze, level, looking more confident than she ever had. Because of how her story had drawn them even closer together?

Clay still wanted to talk more about that. The shooter had chosen the worst time to come after them, not that there ever would have been a good time.

“About the conversation we had...”

“Is it okay if I don’t want to talk about it right now?” Her voice softened, making the words not sound harsh or demanding.

Clay could do nothing but agree. “Of course. The case? Can we talk about that?”

Unless it was his imagination, she relaxed a bit, leaning back against the sofa cushions. She grabbed a throw pillow from beside her and brought it into her lap to hold. “Sure. If there’s any chance it will make this nightmare end sooner, I’m all for it.”

Clay was too. He’d miss being with Summer every day but her safety wasn’t worth extending his time with her.

“I was thinking about the man who is after you.”

“Me too.” Summer shuddered. “Almost every time I close my eyes.”

“I’m trying to figure out who it could be. I think we should make a list.”

“I don’t exactly have a list of enemies, Clay.” Summer shook her head.

“I know you don’t. But someone is after you, and chances are good you’ve met them.”

“Why do you think so?” Summer asked but immediately shook her head. “No, of course they’d have to know me. Unless he was just waiting on the trail for anyone, but if so it’s entirely too coincidental that I share so many similarities with the other victims.”

“Let’s talk about them more.”

“I wrote everything down in a notebook.” Summer’s eyes widened and she paled. “It was in the car.”

Problems with that ran through Clay’s mind in a line, one after another. They didn’t have her notes, problem one. The killer might have their notes, problem two. The police might find their notes and know they’d been investigating. Problem three.

“I didn’t write everything down. I tried to keep it pretty bare-bones just in case.”

“Good thinking on your part,” Clay said aloud, wanting to calm her down some as he could see her eyes widening. “Why don’t we not worry about that right now. The police will bring our belongings back once they’ve processed them for evidence, and then we’ll know if there’s any fallout from the notebook.”

She nodded. “Okay. I can do that. Not worrying. Much.”

“Good. Now, what do we remember?”

“All the women were outdoorsy. That’s the first thing that comes to my mind.”

“If we assume that’s the critical factor connecting the victims, where could he have met you?”

Summer held up a finger. “Hold on just a minute...”

She stood and walked toward the door. Clay followed her. He thought he heard her sigh and he understood—having personal security was restrictive to be sure. But it was necessary still and Clay wasn’t going to take any chances.

She walked to the front desk and said something to Tyler. Clay wasn’t close enough to hear—he thought she’d appreciate the slightest bit of space.

Tyler opened a closet that was to the side of the front desk, behind it. What were they up to?

He reached in and pulled out a whiteboard, and handed it to Summer. She smiled and turned back to Clay. A bag of dry-erase markers was taped to it. Smart. They could brainstorm and then erase the evidence so they wouldn’t have a second notebook situation, something Clay appreciated. Even though he’d told Summer not to worry, he was still slightly concerned about the fact that the investigating they’d been doing might be made public.

They returned to the living room.

“Okay.” Summer opened a marker and set the board in front of them, leaning it against the coffee table. “Places he could have met any of us.”

“Hiking. That’s the first and probably most obvious.”

Summer nodded. “I agree. It’s also the hardest to prove or to track down. It’s not like most trails have any kind of log system and it would be almost impossible to get witnesses or really anything to back this one up.”

“That doesn’t mean it isn’t a possibility.”

“You’re right, I suppose.” She wrote it down. “What else?”

“Races? Have you run anything lately? Some 5Ks? Outdoorsy people are often the ones who do those too and I know Anchorage has a lot.”

She shrugged. “I’ve done a couple this year. Could be.” She wrote it down.

“What about a store for your equipment?”

“It’s possible. I get most of my stuff at Anchorage Outdoor Gear, where we were, but I’ve gotten shoes at Mountain Central before.” She wrote down the names of both stores.

“What else?”

“Trailheads?” she suggested.

“What do you mean?”

“What if he isn’t a hiker but he fishes or something and that was how we crossed paths?” She shrugged. “It’s a stretch. It’s basically the same as hiking, so I just thought I’d toss it out there.”

“Go ahead and write it down,” Clay suggested, and Summer seemed to agree. She nodded and set the marker down on the coffee table.

“Hiking. Races. Stores. Trailheads,” he read aloud.

“There’s no way to make a list from those things. There’s no way to know who hiked somewhere at a certain time or shopped somewhere when I was there.” She shook her head.

“Technically in a store like Anchorage Outdoor Gear we might be able to access online copies of receipts if we needed to prove you were there on the same day as someone else, but I see your point. We might be able to use it to prove a connection when we have a suspect in custody, but it won’t help us narrow down a