Page 32 of Harper

“Report of an unconscious person at the Purple Parsnip.”

“Huh. Okay. That’s serious. Were they breathing?”

“I headed over to check things out. He was breathing, but it was shallow and ragged, sir.”

“You called the fire department?”

Aaron nods. “They sent that new EMT-in-training. Reeve something-or-other.”

“Only one Reeve I know in Skagway. Reeve Stewart.”

His cheeks color. “That’s the one.”

“She’s seventeen, Deputy,” I remind him with a stern look.

“Yessir.”

“Seventeen, Aaron.”

“I know that, sir. I’d never—”

“There’s only a handful of years between you two, but don’t be looking her way until she clears eighteen, understand?”

“Yessir. Again, I’d never—”

“I trust you. Back to the news.”

“Reeve—that is, Miss Stewart—gave him a shot and got him breathing regularly again. Then she took him by ambulance to the clinic.”

“Good job, Reeve,” I say, impressed that the kid I knew as a baby is now helping to save lives. “Any idea what happened to him?”

“I followed up at the clinic later, and they said it was anaphylaxis. Likely from a food allergy.”

“Gotcha. Anything else?”

“Fireworks set off in a garbage can behind the brewery scared the pants off some tourists…and three bears reported on the road to Dyea. Mama and two youngsters.”

“That it?”

“Yessir.”

“Not too bad. All handled? Anything you need me to follow up on?”

Aaron takes a sip of his coffee while reviewing his notes. “I don’t think so.”

“Wait a sec. Is that the second or third report of bears on the road to Dyea?”

“Um. Third, I think.”

“Hmm. I don’t love that. Put in a call to the Game Commission regional office for me, huh? I think they should be in the loop.” Especially since Harper and her family are driving back and forth on that road every day.

“You got it, sir. Anything else?” asks Aaron, standing up and pushing his chair back under the lip of my desk.

“That’ll do,” I tell him with a smile and a nod. “Good work, Aaron.”

“Thanks, boss,” he says, heading back to his desk.

I lift my coffee to my lips, not ready to get to work yet. I turn around in my chair, looking out my office window and thinking about yesterday.

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