Alaskan Christmas Cold Case

In stepped her past in the form of Janie Davis. Erynn felt her jaw tense and a headache start at the corners of her temples. She blinked, but Janie was still standing there. Back from the dead, or so it appeared. And, with her appearance, the heaviness that had crowded Erynn’s high school years, like clouds hanging low over the ocean on a stormy day, also returned.

She’d known Janie from their time in foster care years ago. Erynn couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. Seeing her past find her here, in her office, at work, would have shaken her enough...but Janie Davis had died three years ago, her body having been found near Moose Haven, on a glacier. Erynn had been one of the officers who had worked the case, along with Noah Dawson and the rest of the Moose Haven Police Department. Except clearly she hadn’t died. Because here she was in the Moose Haven Trooper Station.

Would she ever escape her past?

“What are you doing here?” Erynn shook her head, stood and moved to the windows, pulled the blinds and then looked back at her unexpected visitor. “Never mind. Don’t answer yet. I need another set of ears here.” She hated to do it; it went against every ounce of energy she’d spent this week, keeping him at a distance. But Noah’s was the best law enforcement mind for miles around, besides hers. And his team was good, too. She trusted them and she needed help, preferably from another agency, because if she was right about why Janie was there...this was about to blow up in their faces and they’d all need to work together.

She slid her cell phone from her pocket, deciding texting was the fastest way to get Noah’s attention.

S.O.S. I need you at the Trooper station.

He took only seconds to text back.

You’re safe?

Erynn glanced up at the blonde, whose gaze hadn’t left her.

Not sure.

He should be there within minutes. The two law enforcement offices were separated by two blocks and Erynn was all too aware that when it came to Noah and her... Well, it was complicated. Not something she had space in her life for. But she knew he wouldn’t let anything happen to her if he could help it.

“I can’t believe you aren’t happy to see me.” Janie’s voice was much the same as it had been when they were kids living in the same group home, but more grown-up now, a little husky.

“You’ve been missing. We thought you were dead. Found a body and it matched your description...”

“I’m not dead. And I wasn’t missing. I was hiding. There’s a difference.”

Someone knocked on the door.

“Would have been nice if you’d clarified that with law enforcement.” Erynn moved to the door, slid one of the blind slats wider with her fingers to confirm it was Noah, then let him in. They had butted heads more times than she could count in the years she’d been working Moose Haven and he’d been the police chief. But she had his back, knew he had hers.

Today they needed to work together more than they ever had.

Because if the weighty sense of foreboding that sat on Erynn’s shoulders right now had any bearing on reality...they were all in trouble.

And she and Janie were in danger.

“Is this...?” Noah trailed off, glancing at Janie then at Erynn. She knew he’d seen the missing person’s posters and the photos they’d passed around during the search. He also knew about the eventual discovery of the remains they’d assumed were hers in a crevasse in Harding Icefield, the ice field that connected Moose Haven’s Raven Glacier to Seward’s more well-known Exit Glacier.

But he hadn’t known Janie in person the way Erynn had. And, maybe worse, he hadn’t known about Erynn’s relationship to her, either. She hadn’t known how to admit that the case had edged toward personal for her, had danced toward the line of her possibly having to not be on the case.

Because it hadn’t seemed necessary.

Because they’d needed her.

Because she’d cared too much about it to let it out of her hands.

In all the years he’d known Erynn, Noah had never seen her like this. She was the one in control of situations, sure of herself and bossy to a fault. The woman in front of him right now? He didn’t know what could have made her so upset.

However, the fact that someone they’d both thought was dead was standing in the trooper station? It wasn’t a good sign. Scratch that—it had been Noah who had thought they should stop looking at the case, and the rest of the Moose Haven Police Department and the troopers had agreed with him. The case had gone cold; everything had pointed to the possibility it could have been an accident. Erynn’s assertions that they should look more closely at the situation had been ignored.

He was wishing he’d listened to her now.

“This is Janie Davis.” Erynn’s voice was steady but not as steely as usual. Noah waited, not wanting to step into what was technically her case at the moment since Janie had come to her. But Erynn just stood there. Staring. Her face had paled and he watched as she swallowed hard.

There would be time for her to argue with him about this later, but for now he was going to handle things.

“Janie, I’m Noah Dawson, the Moose Haven Police Chief. Can we sit down? We have some questions for you, as you might have assumed, and I’m hoping your presence here means you intend to answer them.”

She shook her head. “I want to talk to Erynn.”

Erynn. Why did she use her first name? Most people would have said “Trooper Cooper.”

Noah looked at his friend. At the woman who had been tying his insides in knots for years—both professionally and personally, whether she knew it or not.

“Since Chief Dawson and I work together on cases often, he needs to be here, too.” Erynn spoke up. “Let’s go into my office.” She looked at Noah, met his eyes, but he couldn’t tell what, if anything, she was trying to convey.

He followed her down the short hallway, into her office, mentally pulling up everything he’d known about the case. They had initially referred to the woman in the glacier crevasse outside Seward as “The Ice Maiden” before linking that case to the disappearance of a woman in Anchorage named Janie Davis. She had matched the description—even though they’d never been able to recover the body. It had been deemed too dangerous, something that was not rare in the Alaskan backcountry.

Maybe he should have pushed for that, told Erynn’s superiors who had flown out that leaving a body left questions unanswered and was unacceptable. People went missing in Alaska, died in accidents all the time. With no solid evidence that the Ice Maiden had been murdered, they’d been forced—or so Noah had felt, anyway—to draw the conclusion that the death had been accidental.

He was questioning that now.

Realistically, Noah wasn’t sure what he could have done, pushing to keep a case open that the troopers had thought was closed. The working relationship between the Moose Haven Police Department and the state troopers could have been compromised.

Noah had regrets but didn’t know if he’d change anything, even if he could go back. They’d done the best they could.

Except he wished he had some power to take away the haunted look in Erynn’s eyes. Who was this woman to her? She’d known her before. He was almost sure of that now.

But how did Janie fit?

“We could arrest you for obstruction of justice, are you aware of that?” Erynn took the lead and did it well. She had been shaken earlier but she’d recovered. Noah should have known she would have. She’d taken a seat behind her desk and sat there now, leaned back, arms crossed. He felt his own shoulders relax. She could handle this.

“Wouldn’t just be me being arrested.” Janie met Erynn’s eyes.

Noah didn’t like what he saw there.

Erynn said nothing.

Noah tried to meet her eyes. Decided to step in, maybe rile up Janie enough so Erynn could get hold of herself again.

“What are you implying, Miss Davis?”

“I think you both know.”

“Trooper Cooper is an outstanding officer and has worked too hard on every case she’s ever had. She takes her job seriously and I won’t listen to you saying otherwise. Are you ready to leave now? Because I can show you out the door.”

A sideways glance told him Erynn didn’t look relieved. If anything, she’d paled even more. She shook her head. “You can’t let her leave.”