Alaskan Mountain Murder

The only man she can trust to save her…

is her son’s secret father!

Searching for her missing aunt in remote Alaska, Cassie Hawkins and her little boy are thrust into a killer’s sights. Now their only safe harbor is Jake Stone, the man she loved and left…but never told about their son. With the mountain trails hiding deadly mysteries, can Jake guard the woman he’s always loved—and the child he didn’t know he had?

SARAH VARLAND lives in Alaska with her husband, John, their two boys and their dogs. Her passion for books comes from her mom; her love for suspense comes from her dad, who has spent a career in law enforcement. When she’s not writing, she’s often found dog mushing, hiking, reading, kayaking, drinking coffee or enjoying other Alaskan adventures with her family.

Also By Sarah Varland

Treasure Point Secrets

Tundra Threat

Cold Case Witness

Silent Night Shadows

Perilous Homecoming

Mountain Refuge

Alaskan Hideout

Alaskan Ambush

Alaskan Christmas Cold Case

Alaskan Mountain Murder

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Alaskan Mountain Murder

Sarah Varland

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-0-008-90713-6

ALASKAN MOUNTAIN MURDER

© 2020 Sarah Varland

Published in Great Britain 2020

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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The gunshot scattered dust at her feet.

“Get down!” She tackled her son. Their son.

“Was that a gun, Mommy?”

That was a question she never thought she’d have to answer. Her heart beat a terrified rhythm and then there was a weight on top of her. Jake. He’d dived on her to shelter them.

Cassie needed time to figure out what that meant, but the gunshots continued.

“What do we do?” she asked Jake. Why had she assumed they’d be safe from the killers here? Maybe because coming after them didn’t make sense. Unless they’d come close to finding something. But what?

Finally, the shots stopped and stillness returned to the woods.

The boy started to cry and Jake calmed him. Then he turned to her. “We need to move.”

At Jake’s word, they started hiking, faster, and Cassie kept vigil, looking for a threat she knew was out there somewhere.

Someone had shot at them today and could still be watching even now.

And she was their prime target.

Dear Reader,

Thank you for coming along to Raven Pass and the first book in this series. This series was created while I was spending some time in the little town of Girdwood, Alaska, and got to thinking about what it would be like to set a book in that town, set in a forest among the mountains. Alaskan Mountain Murder is a result of that and I’m so excited it’s out now and in your hands!

In this book, Cassie and Jake struggle with their past choices and how those have impacted the future. They wrestle with how to trust each other again, and Cassie in particular wrestles with her faith in God.

Have you ever felt like it was too late for God to use your past? Or like because you’d made some poor choices God couldn’t redeem your past? God is in the business of making beautiful things from situations in which we aren’t sure how to find Him. I hope this book reminds you of that.

I love to hear from my readers! You can find me online at Facebook.com/sarahvarlandauthor, or send me an email at [e-mail]. Thank you so much for reading this book and for supporting authors in general. We couldn’t do what we do without you.

Sarah Varland

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

—1 John 1:9

To my family. Thank you for everything.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Introduction

Dear Reader

Bible Verse

Dedication

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

About the Publisher

ONE

The sight of the front door hanging open, crooked on its hinges, was the first time Cassie Hawkins let herself consider that something might be really wrong. As she sat in the relative safety of her rental car staring at her aunt’s home, she wondered if she should go in this late at night. She’d gotten the phone call as her aunt’s next of kin—more like a daughter than a niece after all the years Cassie had lived with her—that she was missing. But it was Alaska, people went missing often in innocent ways that still had them coming home eventually. Hikers got lost. Plans changed and independent Alaskans forgot to tell their friends.

Cassie couldn’t say that she’d heard of many disappearances beginning with open house doors that ended well. She swallowed hard and started to step out of the car. She had one foot on the Alaskan ground she’d sworn years ago never to return to when she hesitated, climbed back into the vehicle. Was it safe to go inside?

Her gaze went to the seat behind her, where six-year-old Will was dozing soundly, his cheek pressed against the headrest of his high-back booster. He’d fallen asleep just after they’d left the airport in Anchorage, before they’d headed south on the Seward Highway. She’d driven the familiar curving road in silence, appreciating the sweeping views of Turnagain Arm and the mountains that guarded it, even as her chest tightened at the idea of being this close to Raven Pass. To home.

To Jake Stone.

She exhaled a long breath, all the weariness of the last few days tangled up in it. She couldn’t leave Will in the car, not when no one seemed to have a good answer for how her aunt had disappeared. If there was foul play involved—and the state of the door on the house made her uncomfortable—she couldn’t risk her son. He was all she had.

That and an overwhelming sense of guilt that her former fiancé had no idea he existed.

Her stomach turned and she swallowed hard. She should go to Jake’s house first, before she did anything else, before she let Will out of the car and small-town tongues started talking. She hadn’t meant to keep Will from him, not really. But as she’d let more time pass without having that necessary conversation—one that was too important for a phone call but that she’d never worked up the courage to have in person—it had gotten more difficult to face the inevitable.

He needed to know.

Cassie climbed back into the car, shut the door and pulled out of the driveway, checked her rearview as she navigated back onto Raven Pass’s main road.

There. Behind her on the side of the road. Hadn’t she seen that gray car before? It had been behind her on the highway earlier. And hadn’t they stopped for gas when she’d stopped in Girdwood, just fifteen miles or so back?

And now they were in Raven Pass too, right here near her aunt’s house?

She took a deep breath, felt her heartbeat slow and steady as she braced herself for a crisis. Cassie had many faults, she was well aware of them, but when something went wrong, it was like her mind buckled down, readied itself for battle.

It was what had made her want to be a doctor all those years ago, the suggestion she could use that skill to help people.

If only she’d gotten the chance. But life was too short to waste on regrets. And besides, she wouldn’t trade Will for all the degrees and dreams in the world. Jake would tell her that God had a way of redeeming situations and turning challenges into blessings. He’d always said things like that when they were dating, spoken of God like He cared about her.

Cassie? She’d never been sure.

Out on the road, she put the rental car back in Drive and headed forward, toward Jake’s house, her eyes flitting between the road in front of her and the rearview mirror.

The gray car followed.

Cassie swallowed hard, increased her speed as the other car did the same. She led the car back out of town, onto the Seward Highway. Her eyes went once again to Will’s sleeping face. She’d do anything to protect her son. But what if it wasn’t enough? She couldn’t lose him.

Please, God. She fumbled with the words. Jake had tried to introduce her to the God he loved, but Cassie had never quite understood. How could Jake talk to God as though He were right there, a friend, and not a far-off Being who created the world and existed somewhere far away.

Still, it was worth a try. Hopefully that would count for something and if He was there as Jake insisted He was, He’d help her somehow.

The car edged closer and Cassie reached for her cell, which was sitting on the dashboard. She’d not bothered to sync it to the rental’s Bluetooth system when she’d picked up the vehicle. Keeping her eyes on the road, she wrapped her fingers around the slick, cool phone.

It slid from her hand to the floorboard. She glanced down, looked back up again in time to swerve back right and miss the truck she’d almost hit head-on in the attempt to get her phone.

She’d have to call the police later. Right now she was on her own.

There were no turnoffs that were a good place for losing the tail, not unless she could drive around Girdwood and lose him in one of the neighborhoods filled with houses and vacation cabins.

Otherwise her option was to drive on the dangerous Seward Highway all the way back to Anchorage with him on her tail. Some of the curves of the road hugged rock cliffs on one side, where the mountain itself had been blasted to build the highway, and the ocean on the other. It wasn’t a risk she was willing to take.

She’d have to try to lose him. Cassie turned right onto the Alyeska Highway, a generous name for the two-lane road that led to the resort town of Girdwood, the town nearest to Raven Pass, and pushed the engine as far over the limit as she dared. Drawing someone’s attention with her speed could help her, but on the other hand, this was a town where many people walked and rode their bikes and she didn’t want to risk hitting anyone. Even this late at night people could be out, though it seemed hardly anyone was.

No matter how many turns down obscure neighborhood roads she made, Cassie couldn’t shake the tail. And she couldn’t make out any of the driver’s facial features either.

This had to stop. Every minute that swept by her heart beat faster and she felt her body temperature rising. She only had so much longer to be able to hold it together.

She’d go back to Raven Pass, to the police department there. She should have thought of that in the first place. She’d just been so determined to try to lose her tail. All she could do was try to make better decisions now, and that started with finding a police department. Since Girdwood had no department of its own, Raven Pass was her best bet. She needed to go back.

Pressing the gas pedal hard and gripping the steering wheel like she had NASCAR aspirations, she drove hard, back toward town.

She’d just made it past the Welcome to Raven Pass sign when the gray car accelerated, and Cassie hit the gas but braced herself for impact in case she’d reacted too slowly.

She had.

The crash was an instant of crunching metal and pain in Cassie’s head, and the car threatened to spin out as she fought the wheel for control. After seconds that seemed like minutes, she won, and the sedan slowed to a stop on the side of the road. She was grateful it hadn’t been a hard enough jolt for the airbag to deploy. There were no other vehicles in sight, probably because she’d had the brilliant idea to come to town right after her flight got in, which meant it was just past midnight, not exactly the prime traffic time of day. She should have spent the night at a hotel in Anchorage and waited until day to head to Raven Pass, but then how could she have known she’d be followed? Run off the road?

Cassie twisted in her seat to look in the back, thankful to see that Will looked uninjured. He was awake, his eyes wide, his cheek still marked with wrinkles from being pressed against the booster seat, an image that turned her heart upside down with sheer love.

She had to keep him safe.

“Did we get in a wreck?” he asked, his eyes wide, voice wavering.

If only she had the time to reassure him fully, but the door of the gray car behind them was opening. And she had no choice but to run.

“Listen, baby,” she said as she unbuckled his seat, “when I open your door, I need you to run as fast as you can, okay? We’re going into the trees there.” She motioned with her finger toward the dark spruce woods. Memories fought to surface—hiking the woods with Jake, finding places where they could talk—and not talk—without interruption. Would the memories always feel so suffocating? She’d felt numb in Florida. Up here though, she felt everything as deeply as ever. Every ounce of love she’d ever had for him, the regret at her rash decision to leave town.

But time couldn’t be turned back.

And right now her focus was keeping her son—and herself—safe.

“Ready?” she asked him, taking a deep breath.

“Ready, Mom.” His little voice was confident. Trusting.

Please, God, don’t let me let him down. She tried another prayer, remembering the way Jake had talked to God.

“Go!” She threw her door open, then quickly yanked his wide, and they both took off into the woods.

“Hey!” her attacker yelled—the voice was male, but she didn’t notice any more than that in her hurry to escape—but they didn’t turn around. Instead they ran, straight for the path Cassie remembered, which would take them to town—where it came out she couldn’t remember, but someone would help her. It was a tight-knit community, where you could count on your neighbors.

And hopefully find safety.

They ran until Will started to lag and then Cassie picked him up, his head resting on her shoulder as she pushed herself as fast as she could with a sixty-pound boy draped across her.

Ignoring the burn in her legs, the sharp pain in her lungs as she gasped for breath after breath, exhaustion and adrenaline fighting for dominance, Cassie closed the gap between where she was and town, glancing back now and then to see if she was being pursued. Once she’d seen someone, large and tall, dressed in dark clothes with a ski mask, and since then she’d pushed her pace harder. As the woods grew thicker, her pace slowed by necessity, and she stepped off the trail, staying close enough to it that she knew where she was—at least she thought so—but hoping her pursuer wouldn’t be able to find her, even if he did catch up. The path she made through the trees was tight but it worked, twisting around large stalks of the thorn-laden devil’s club plant.

The darkness of the woods grew thicker as she approached Fourteen-Mile River. The main trail had a bridge, but since she’d been avoiding that path, she’d have to run through the river and soak her legs. Better than being caught by whoever had been after her.

She splashed through the water, the icy cold like a thousand needles in her skin as she ran. Not far now, maybe a quarter of a mile till the path would end. She just needed to figure out where she was going to come out in relation to town, and plot her path to the police station. Or just find the first house and ask for help and a phone to call the police. She’d decide which when she got there.

Cassie glanced back one more time, saw the tall man dressed in dirty jeans and a jacket, a ski mask on his head. He was closer now than he had been, and she could see a large gun in his right hand.

Any doubts about whether she was justified in running, about whether or not her aunt had disappeared naturally, fled from her mind.

Something was going on in Raven Pass, something that had put her aunt, and now Cassie and her son, in danger.

She was fueled by adrenaline now, keenly aware that it would fade soon and then she’d be at his mercy.

Cassie was determined not to let it happen. So she kept running, pushing through the last bit of crowded forest onto a gravel path, lifting her eyes to look straight at the house in front of her.

Light green with dark green trim. An octagonal window above the front door on the second story.

She’d run straight to Jake Stone’s old house. Just like old times, like she could still count on him to sweep her into his solid arms and tell her everything was going to be okay.

Those days were long gone, and Jake had surely moved out of his parents’ old home, but she needed help, and needed it now. She felt convinced whoever was after her wouldn’t hesitate to snatch her even from here, on the edges of town where someone could see. Why else would he have worn a mask to conceal his identity?

She needed to get inside that house. Call the police. Sort this out.

So she didn’t hesitate any longer. She sprinted across the street, and threw open the door, just like she would have without hesitation seven years ago—when the Stones had treated her like part of the family, when it had been assumed she and Jake would follow through on their engagement and maybe one day live in this adorable house in Raven Pass.

Back before everything blew up. And Cassie had been left holding the fuse.

She could only pray his parents had forgiven her, but even if they hadn’t, they were decent people. They would keep her safe, she was sure of it.

She shut the door hard behind her and locked it, then set a wide-eyed Will down beside her.

“Are we okay, Mom?” he asked in a shaky voice.

“We will be, sweetie. Stay right here, okay?” Cassie moved toward the kitchen, hoping they still had a landline.

And ran straight into a solid person. Tall. Much, much too solid to be Jake’s dad.

And found herself looking right into the sky blue eyes of the man whose heart she’d broken seven years ago. Jake Stone.

“Cassie?”

Jake barely managed to sputter out her name, the one he hadn’t spoken aloud more than a handful of times in years. He’d imagined what it would be like to see her once more, maybe even let himself have the slightest daydream about her being against his chest like this again.

But deep down he’d known the latter would never happen, and the former probably wouldn’t either. He’d heard her aunt was missing and he’d let himself wonder if Cassie would come but hadn’t really thought she would.

Now she was in his house. And there was a little boy standing beside her.

A little boy who looked… Jake swallowed hard. Seven? Six?

She hadn’t said a word to him about the boy yet, but Jake saw his eyes in the boy’s face, saw his own childhood expression mirrored.

“What are you doing here?” He put his hands on her upper arms, gently, and stepped back, looked her over. Her brown-sugar hair was tangled around her face, which was red, like she’d been exercising.

“My aunt is gone. I’m in town because of that, but when I went to her house the door was open and I don’t know why. Someone followed me here.” Cassie turned quickly, looked behind her though nothing was back there.

“And you ran here…?”

“I didn’t come here on purpose.” Her cheeks reddened further. “Listen.” She cleared her throat, her tone switching to the all-business one she used when she was uncomfortable. “I’m sorry to have bothered you, but I went to my aunt’s house and the door was open, and there was a car and they followed me and ran me off the road…” She glanced back again. “They chased me through the woods, even through Fourteen-Mile River when I crossed it. I needed to get help and this was the first house I saw. I’m sorry, but please. Don’t send us away yet, not until the police come.”

Jake felt his defenses rise, his shoulders tense. She’d hurt him, sure, probably more than anyone realized. He glanced at the small boy beside her who still hadn’t said a word. Swallowed hard. Either way, this was another layer to the hurt. Had she cheated on him? Or…

It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that they could have made a son together. Jake had had good intentions, had his standards and his plans to wait until they were married but it had grown harder and he hadn’t resisted temptation as well as he should have.

Cassie didn’t share his level of faith, and had said she loved him and that was what had mattered. But still, whether she believed in God or not, it had been his job to keep their relationship on track. He’d failed her.