Manhunter

“How long you been here, Constable?” Gabe asked suddenly.

“Five months, sir.”

“Your first posting?”

“Second. I was in Faro for two years. I like the north, Sergeant.”

Gabe inhaled deeply, reaching for patience. “So it’s just you and me for now, then, Constable?”

“And Rosie.”

“Yeah.” And Rosie. Gabe walked over to the wide window cut into rough-hewn log walls. It looked out over the dusty main street.

“It’s not like much happens up here from fall into winter,” Donovan offered. “Apart from the odd domestic or drunk disturbance.”

That’s what ate at Gabe.

Seventeen years had come to this?

“And there was the grizzly attack last week,” he said. “That caused a bit of a stir. The file is on your desk.”

Gabe wasn’t listening, his attention suddenly snared by the woman striding down the road with the hunting rifle slung across her back and a troop of wolf dogs following in her wake.

Silver.

She’d cleaned up, and be damned if she didn’t look even more alluring.

Wearing a denim jacket over a white cotton dress that skimmed her tall moccasin-style boots, her long black hair had been released from its braid and swung loose across her back, reaching almost to her butt.

Donovan came to his side. “That’s Silver Karvonen. She’s the tracker the conservation office contracted to hunt the man killer. Like I said, file is on your desk.”

Gabe’s eyes shot to Donovan. “Man killer?”

“Well.” The constable cleared his throat again, “The grizz didn’t actually kill the guy, but the CO said he would have if the hunter hadn’t rolled down into the ravine. Bear probably has a taste for human blood now.”

Gabe’s pulse accelerated slightly. “That your opinion or the CO’s?”

He flushed again. “Well, mine, actually, Sergeant.”

Gabe glanced back at Silver making her way toward the general store. He hadn’t been this interested in anything for a long, long time. “You say she’s a tracker?”

“One of the best north of 60. Does man tracking, too. They fly her out for some of the real tough search-and-rescue missions, mostly across the North, and especially if there are kids involved. She has a real thing for the lost children. She just won’t give up if there’s a minor missing.”

Intrigue stirred something to life inside him.

“Otherwise she manages the Old Moose Lodge during the summer months for an outfitter based out of Whitehorse. The Old Moose property lies just beyond the town boundaries on the shores of Natchako Lake, where she has a cabin. The outfitters own the hunting concession up here,” he said. “And Silver occasionally guides parties who fly in and pay megabucks for the big game.”

Gabe watched Silver order her wolf pack to sit before climbing the old wooden stairs of the Northern Store across the street. Gabe knew the population of Black Arrow Falls was 90 percent Black Arrow Gwitchin, a very small subgroup of the Gwitchin Nation that stretched across the Canadian North and into Alaska, but Silver had gotten those laser-blue eyes from somewhere else.

“Karvonen,” he said quietly, contemplating the woman vanishing through the store door. “That’s not a local name.”

“Finnish. Her mother was Black Arrow Gwitchin, but her father was apparently some crazy maverick prospector from Finland. Most of the prospectors who came up this way were looking for Yukon gold. They called him The Finn, tell me he came looking for silver.”

“He ever make a strike?”

“No, but he found a wife and had a kid. That’s where she got her name, Silver.”

They all come looking for something. Sometimes they don’t know what it is.

Gabe almost smiled. So, the prospector got what he came for. He just didn’t know it was a family he’d been seeking.

“You up on the local gossip, eh, Constable?”

Donovan shrugged, a grin sneaking across his face, and Gabe felt himself warming to the guy in spite of himself.

But before Donovan could say anything more, the phone on the desk in Gabe’s tiny office rang, startling him back to his present predicament.

Donovan jerked his head toward it. “Your direct line, Sergeant. Goes straight through and into voice mail if Rosie’s not on duty.”

Gabe strode into his new cell, snatched the receiver up to his ear. “Caruso,” he barked.

“Gabe, it’s Tom.”

His RCMP pal from Surrey homicide.

“Tom? How—”

“Where in hell have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you all day.”

“Cell reception out here is a nonexistent luxury.”

“You see the news?”

Something inside Gabe quieted at the tone in Tom’s voice. “What news?” he said softly.

“The Bush Man—he’s on the loose. Kurtz bloody Steiger busted out of max security during the storm last night.”

Chapter 3

Gabe’s head began to buzz. His fist tightened around the handset.

“How?” he said, barely audibly. “How in hell did he get out?”

“Floodwater was seeping into the underground electrical systems at Kent Institution with this deluge we’ve been having,” said Tom. “Correctional services was sandbagging like crazy while putting together contingency plans to transfer inmates to the Mountain Institution if things got worse.”

Gabe could picture it. Kent was in the low-lying area of the Agassiz delta. The neighboring Mountain Institution was on slightly higher ground.

“The water levels rose too fast. Power shorted, backup generator blew as they were trying to switch over. Wardens had to hustle inmates out in the dark.”