for an inexperienced musher to make the dogs afraid of being run over by the sled. Her stupidity had done just that.
Shit happened. Donna didn’t hate the dogs, but she didn’t love them either, not like Gordon did anyway. They were part of his family. To Donna, they were a means to an end, a method of conveyance. She loved them no more than she loved her pickup truck. If she were honest with herself, she loved that Toyota far more than any bunch of mangy dogs. The truck she’d take to the shop if it broke down. This was the end of the road for Smoke. The rest of the team would get her to the cabin and then she didn’t care what happened to them.
Stone Cross was a write-off since that idiot VPSO had gotten in her way. In hindsight, she should never have shot him. The fool didn’t even carry a pistol. He was still a cop though, so there was that. There was no going back from this, not to the village, not anywhere. It didn’t matter, as long as the kid who had watched her son die confessed his crimes. He would tell her the truth. Rick would make sure of that.
And now there was a damned plane. No one would be out here in this except the troopers. They’d probably already found Ned Jasper’s body. She hadn’t seen any witnesses when she’d shot, but Jasper was dead in front of where she’d been staying, and she’d fled the scene with the dogs. Even the troopers were smart enough to put those clues together. That noise above her would be them now, out searching for their killer. There was a small unmarked runway half a mile from the old cabin. She’d planned to get picked up there—after they did what they had to do.
She doubted that would happen now. The troopers would land there and arrest everyone . . . or try to. Rick had already assured her he wasn’t going back to jail.
The noise of the airplane faded quickly, swallowed up by the gale as she untangled the last dog and stretched seven of them out on the gang line. She left Smoke unhitched, not bothering to remove her harness. The dog could follow along or freeze, that was up to her. The troopers would eventually find a hole in the weather, and then it was only a matter of time before they zeroed in with their search. Donna couldn’t let that happen before she got what she came for. She stomped her foot, shooing the cowering Smoke out of her way as she retrieved the claw snow hook, and then stepped on the runners. Tail down, the former lead dog skulked toward her, shivering, not understanding what was going on. She squinted into the storm, amber eyes crusted with ice and snow.
Donna whistled, getting the team’s attention. Smoke’s ears came up, hopeful. The arctic blast was already turning her wet fur into a coat of solid ice.
“Hike! Hike!” Donna shouted, ignoring the cowering animal. She couldn’t wait around and play nursemaid. She needed to get to the cabin. It was time to end this thing.
CHAPTER 38
Lola Teariki resigned herself to the fact that the troopers were not coming to Stone Cross, no time soon anyway. Markham, his law clerk, and Ewing were all in the library drinking instant coffee Ewing had scrounged from the teachers’ break room. It was the first useful thing she’d seen the man do on this trip.
He’d found sugar, but no creamer, so Jolene had gone to get some from the other end of the school, in a storage closet off the gym where she said her mom kept popcorn, syrups for the slushy machine, and other sundries she used for school fundraisers. Lola had promised to watch over Jolene since Sascha was lurking around the village, and it made her a little sick to her stomach to let the girl out of her sight. She’d already started a timer on her phone, resolving to go and check if Jolene wasn’t back in six minutes.
One of the great things about Cutter was that he trusted her to handle things in his absence. One of the crappy things about Cutter was that he trusted her so much it gave her plenty of room to screw up. When it came to Judge Markham, there was no way she was going to make everyone happy.
Lola no longer believed Daisy Aguthluk was a