Page 61 of Snow River

“That dress,” she said impatiently.She pointed at the woman on the left.“See that pattern on the hem of her dress?”

“I guess.”He shook his head, then blinked the tension out of his eyes.He’d been trying to focus on her phone for too long.

“It looks just like Allison Casey’s dress and the one we found hanging in The Fang.”

“Maybe it was a very popular style at the time.”

“Bear.”She snatched the phone away from him and glared.“It cannot be a coincidence.It just simply cannot be.That’s not my intuition talking, that’s logic.”

He nodded slowly, since he couldn’t deny that she was probably right.

Why was he even trying to deny it?

He knew why.Because he didn’t want to call Cromwell.

“We need to tell the police that someone rigged that…prank or whatever…with a dress that’s identical to the dress of someone killed in the Snow River Murders, and that the same dress is right here in an article about Billy Hardwell, and that there’s a witness who saw Charles Greenley’s killer right here in Firelight Ridge right after those murders.And there’s something else.Get this.Rita Casey was engaged to Jim Sutcliff, the guy who did that podcast about the Snow River Murders.I saw it in his obituary.That connects the two cases right there!I bet Rita Casey came here to the area to follow up on something in the podcast.”

Bear sorted through all the connections—which ones were based on Lila’s intuition and which were based on hard evidence.“Would Paulina be willing to make a sworn statement about the man she witnessed?”

“I don’t know.Maybe.Isn’t the drawing enough?”

“No, she’d have to validate it.”

Poor Paulina...Cromwell was terrible with witnesses, especially women.Impatient and disrespectful.Bear hated the idea of him berating Paulina Volk.

“She might talk to you,” Lila suggested, her eyes filled with trust.“She thinks the world of you.”

He shook his head tightly.“That won’t work.”

“Why not?I know you and Cromwell don’t like each other, and that he’s sort of a prick.But if you take her statement and she signs it, wouldn’t that be enough?”

“No,” he said sharply.“There’s nothing I can do that they’d accept.Just drop it.”

She drew back, not afraid—thank God—but confused.“I don’t understand.Why does he dislike you so much?”

“He doesn’t even know me.Not enough to dislike me.It’s not personal.”With those brusque words, he tried to chase the issue away, to move on to something else.But Lila had her wide-open violet eyes fixed on him, and they were enclosed in a supply closet the size of a body scanner, and he was tired, so tired, of keeping those people’s goddamn secrets.

He was about to speak when someone pounded on the door.“Bear, you in there?Better come out here!They’re fighting!”called Martha.

28

While Bear workedon restoring order—one of the Chilkoot crew was going at it with a farmer who’d done some work for him—Lila held down the bar.Several customers sat with elbows propped behind them on the bar, taking in the show.A few paid no attention at all; fistfights breaking out wasn’t a rare thing.

At one end of the bar, a stranger sat watching the action with an expression of bemusement.He hadn’t been served yet, so at the earliest opportunity she went to take his order.

“I was actually here for an interview, but this is a lot more entertaining,” he said with a smile.

Lila gave him another look.He wore a blazer over a button-down shirt—not the kind of outfit you usually saw around here.A messenger bag was slung across his chest, and she noticed empty earring holes in one ear.Had he taken off his ear jewelry to apply for a job in the wild west of Alaska?

“Are you here for the line cook job?”

“That’s the one.I’ve been working at restaurants for the past six years.I left a resumé the last time I came in here.”

“Right.Bear told me about it.He must have forgotten you have an interview.”

“I can come back sometime when there isn’t a brawl.”

She smiled, enjoying his wry sense of humor.He seemed pleasant enough, though she didn’t pick up much of anything from him on an intuitive level.Her first impression was “professional” and “easygoing.”

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