Christmas Up in Flames Read online

  Then the back door slammed, but her relief was cut short when she heard the killer walk back into the kitchen.

  Her shoulders sagged as he passed the closet and his heavy footsteps moved off. The front door opened and closed. But she didn’t dare move. Not yet. Not until she knew for certain the killer wasn’t coming back.

  Sudden tears flooded her eyes. What if Walt was alive and she was cowering in the closet? No. She mentally shook her head. She couldn’t think like that. If she left her hiding place too soon, they’d both be dead.

  Seconds passed. No noises sounded. No doors opened. No footsteps made their way down the hall. She gathered her courage and cautiously emerged from her shelter.

  The house was eerily still. Wind whistled through the eaves, covering the sound of her raspy breathing.

  She moved cautiously, her boots leaving watery footprints over the chipped tile. Walt had retired to his family home in Kodiak Springs, Alaska, the year before. The house was little more than a ramshackle cabin on a beautiful plot of land overlooking the hot springs resort, and no one had lived there since Walt’s mom passed away five years before. He’d been slowly making repairs, but the place was barely habitable. Typical of Walt, he’d started on the kennels first.

  As she rounded the corner to the living room, the smell hit her like a wall. Blood. Pungent and sickly sweet. A scent you only had to experience once to remember forever.

  She stood paralyzed, knowing her life was about to change forever and unable to accept the truth.

  A stack of firewood flanked the grate to her left. The Christmas tree in the corner was lit. A threadbare rag rug rested beneath her feet. Steeling herself against what she’d find, she lifted her gaze.

  A sob caught in the back of her throat. She’d seen enough death in her life and veterinary training to know that Walt was gone.

  Grief sapped the strength from her limbs, and she staggered back a step.

  Walt had been her mentor and surrogate father. At eighteen, she had been living in Florida when she witnessed a murder. She’d turned state’s evidence and become one of the youngest people ever relocated by the Witness Security Program.

  She’d been an adult according to the law of the state if not in her heart. In her heart, she’d still been a scared kid, hoping her life might turn around once she grew up. WITSEC had taken her input seriously and placed her in Alaska. She’d never seen snow, and the most time she’d spent outdoors had been at the beach, but Alaska was as far away from Florida as she’d been able to imagine at the time—and that was good enough.

  Her handler had taken her love of animals into account and secured her a job working with Walt and his sled dogs at Denali State Park. His efforts had gifted her with the most profound blessing of her life. She didn’t know what would have happened if she hadn’t been given that job with Walt.

  He’d worked for the Witness Security Program before returning home to his beloved Alaska, and he was the only person who knew the truth about her. Good thing, too. Following her initial orientation and training, joining the WITSEC program had been little more than a glorified plane ticket out of Florida. Once they’d relocated her, she’d had very little contact with anyone in the program.

  With Walt’s encouragement, she’d imagined a better future for herself. He’d helped her enroll in college, and he’d kept her spirits buoyed during the years she studied veterinary medicine in the lower forty-eight. When she finally graduated, he’d helped her get her first job.

  He’d been everything to her...

  Walt didn’t have an enemy in the world.

  A horrifying suspicion took shape in her mind. If this had something to do with her, why now? Nick Amato, the man she’d seen commit a heinous murder, had died in jail six months ago. Even if someone cared enough to track her down after all these years, why come for Walt instead of her? She was an easier target.

  A sound caught her attention, and she whipped around. The knob on the front door turned. Her knees went weak.

  The killer had returned.

  * * *

  Alaska state trooper Shane Taylor concentrated on the road. Visibility was less than ten feet, and the temperature was well below zero. Gusts of wind sent sheets of snow slithering across the highway.

  His four-wheel drive, extended-cab truck, though old, was equipped with a plow, a winch, a tow bar and enough emergency supplies for a week. In the dead of winter, sometimes even that wasn’t enough.

  A car in the ditch snagged his attention. After pulling to the side of the road, he tromped through the growing drifts and swiped a clean spot on the driver’s side window. Empty. He wrapped a length of yellow police tape around the side mirror to signal the car had been checked for passengers.

  Back inside his truck, he pressed his gloved hands against the warm air blowing from the vents. He was reaching for his radio when his phone caught his attention. Kara. His heart did a little flip-flop, and he dropped his hand to his knee.

  It had been three months since she’d broken up with him. Though he knew it was for the best, his emotions still stung.

  He couldn’t recall ever dating anyone who’d tangled him up quite like Kara. He’d known from the beginning they were wrong for each other. She was a cheechako—an outsider. People like Kara came to Alaska hoping they could hide from whatever troubles they were running from in the lower forty-eight. Eventually, they all arrived at the same conclusion—even Alaska wasn’t big enough that you could hide from yourself.

  Shane was fiercely protective of the little community surrounding Kodiak Springs, and every instinct in his body had warned him that whatever baggage she was hiding risked the peace of his town.

  Why, then, did even the sight of her name on his phone send his heart beating like a teenager with his first crush?

  He pinched off his glove and swiped at the screen. The time stamp indicated the text had been sent about the time he’d spotted the car in the ditch.

  Walt shot. Gunman in his house. Hiding. Sorry. For everything.

  Shane quickly read the text again, his brain struggling to comprehend what he was seeing. Was he being pranked? Had someone gotten hold of Kara’s phone? He read the last line again.

  Sorry. For everything.

  A chill pricked the hairs on the back of his neck.

  This wasn’t a prank.

  * * *

  With one last glance at Walt, Kara sprinted toward the back door. Her heavy boots skated over the slick tiles and she cracked her shin against a chair. Ignoring the stab of pain, she yanked open the back door to a frigid blast of icy snow. A pop sounded. The doorjamb splintered near her head.

  Ducking left, she bolted outside. The cold hit her lungs with a painful burn, and her eyes watered. Walt usually kept the path to the kennels clear, but at least an inch of snow had already fallen this morning. Another gunshot sounded. She added a burst of speed.

  Sitka and Zoya, Walt’s sled dogs, barked at the commotion, and her footsteps faltered. No. She couldn’t stop. She’d get help and return later.

  Her feet skidded out from beneath her and she tumbled around the corner of the kennels. Scrambling upright, she sprinted toward her snow machine.

  Not daring to look back just yet, she leaped onto the seat, turned the key, then yanked the starter. The engine roared to life. Leaning forward, she twisted the throttle. The skis caught traction and sent a plume of snow streaming behind her.

  Along with the blowing snow, the trees surrounding Walt’s house provided cover. She had a head start. She also had the added advantage of knowing the trail by heart. Much to Walt’s horror, she’d even made the trip in the dark on one occasion.

  She maneuvered around a tall spruce before glancing over her shoulder. Nothing. The house and the kennels had disappeared into the blizzard. No one appeared through the heavy snow.

  As relief shuddered through her, a se
aring pain ripped across her upper thigh.

  Her grip loosened. The skis swerved. The snow machine veered and flipped. Unable to right herself, she sailed through the air and landed hard on her back. The breath whooshed from her lungs.

  As she struggled to rise, a wave of nausea crashed over her. She gasped for air and touched the spot on her thigh. Her hand came away smeared red.

  She’d been shot.

  Collapsing onto her back once more, she blinked the melting flakes from her eyelashes. A part of her was tempted to simply close her eyes.

  She fumbled for her phone, the air feeling dense around her, as though she was swimming through a thick gel. Even the simplest task felt unmanageable. Her hands ached. In her panic, she’d left her gloves behind.

  She groggily raised the phone into her line of vision.

  No reception.

  That figured. Storms around here had a way of messing with the signal.

  Her arm dropped to her side. What next?

  Given the temperature and the wind chill, she was at risk for frostbite and hypothermia in less than twenty minutes. But if the killer was still tracking her, the cold was the least of her worries. She had to think logically. She wasn’t helpless. Not completely.

  Walt deserved better. She was the only witness to his murder. She was the best chance to find his killer.

  Angry flurries whipped through the pine needles, and the icy chill penetrated her snowsuit. Despite her resolve, her concentration slipped. For years after moving north, she’d still thought of Florida as her home. There’d been a part of her that even believed she might return someday.

  Not anymore.

  Alaska was her home now.

  Alaska was where she’d been reborn, and Alaska was where she was going to die.

  Just not today, God willing.

  The cold seemed to abate, and her thoughts drifted to Walt.

  He was home now, with his Savior. He was at rest. He was at peace.

  Once he’d told her that he hoped he got to pick his age in heaven. He wanted to be a ten-year-old boy again, and full of wonder. That’s the only thing I regret about growing old, he’d said, the loss of wonder.

  The tips of the pine trees arced overhead, framing the dense, gray of the falling snow. She imagined the plume of smoke rising from Walt’s chimney, and her throat closed. She’d never again be greeted by the sight.

  Summoning one last burst of strength, she pushed herself to her knees. She prayed that Shane might find her before it was too late, but her vision wavered and blurred.

  If someone wanted her dead, however, she wasn’t going down without a fight.

  Copyright © 2020 by Sherri Shackelford

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  ISBN-13: 9781488061554

  Christmas Up in Flames

  Copyright © 2020 by Lisa Harris

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  For questions and comments about the quality of this book, please contact us at [email protected].

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