Page 2 of Cold Light of Day

The killer was tracking him.

Legs shaking, Kenny powered through the fear before it paralyzed him. Keeping to the thickest trees for protection, he snow-jogged. Outlasting the killer, giving him reason to give up the hunt, was the only way to lose him.

Except Kenny had already been out here for too long. His lungs ached. Muscles burned.

Pressing his back against a spruce to rest, he sucked in cold air.

Kenny pulled out his Buck 50th anniversary–edition Ranger knife in case he had to face off with the man who had a long gun as well as a loaded pistol. What did the hunter want with him? Dumb question. Kenny had witnessed him commit murder. But he hadn’t seen the man’s face. He’d just have to do what a lot of people came to Alaska to do—vanish.

Pushing from the tree, he tried to keep up the pace as he jogged through the snow toward higher elevation. Another possible mistake, but he wanted to lose this guy.

He hadn’t gone far before he couldn’t catch his breath, which meant he couldn’t keep going.

Even if his life depended on it.

The temperature was dropping fast. He stumbled forward and out of the tree line ...just a little farther...and spotted the lights shining from the town below.

He should be sitting next to the fire at his uncle’s cabin and eating moose stew instead of running for his life.

A shout brought him around. Standing twenty-five yards away, he spotted the killer. The man aimed his rifle right at Kenny and looked through the scope.

Before Kenny could react, the ground rumbled and shook, and the snow shifted under his feet. He glanced up at the peak above.

A new terror gripped him as realization dawned.

The hunter would kill him to make sure he didn’t climb out from the avalanche racing toward him. Alaska would make him disappear forever.

No one would miss him—no one who cared even knew he was here.

ONE

SOUTHEASTALASKA

AUGUST

Autumn Long had no plans to give up without a fight, even though it might be killing her a little every day.

As the bush plane sank lower, her view of the glacier spilling into the valley behind a forest exploding with reds, oranges, and browns fell away. Lofty mountains on each side of the fjord filled her vision.

“Hold on, Chief. We’re almost there.” Pilot Carrie James flew her bush plane straight up the Lynn Canal—one of the longest, deepest fjords in the world. The snowcapped Kakuhan Mountains rose lofty on the right, the Chilkat Range near Haines to the left. And across from Haines to the west—Glacier Bay National Park.

Autumn ignored the mounting dread she felt and focused her thoughts. She had better get her act together and earn back the trust of the city council and the people she swore to protect in the small town of Shadow Gap, one of many communities dotting the Inside Passage of the Alaska Panhandle.

She’d stayed overnight in Anchorage for a meeting that left her drained to her bones. She’d taken an Alaska Airlines flightto and from Juneau, and now Carrie was delivering her up to the northernmost part of the Panhandle. Wearing her brown bomber jacket and a headset, sitting in the cockpit of her Helio Courier—the ultimate bush plane—Carrie was a bush pilot poster child.

The plane flew lower, following the Chilkoot Inlet until Carrie banked east, flying over the Lewis Inlet that branched off. “That’s why I’d better say this before I lose the chance.”

Autumn wasn’t sure she wanted to hear it.

Carrie angled her head toward Autumn and arched a brow. “I know you didn’t ask for my opinion.” Carrie looked forward again. “But you didn’t do anything wrong. Out here we take care of our own. The land is harsh. Brutal in ways the lower forty-eight can’t imagine. We have to watch out for each other, and that’s all you’ve ever done for the people of Shadow Gap.”

“Yeah, well...thanks, Carrie.”Tell that to Wally. He’d had it out for her from the first day she took her position as police chief.

Carrie waved a hand in mock incredulity. “Shadow Gap isn’t even classified as a town, much less an organized borough, so who needs a city council anyway?”

Or a police department, some might say.

Autumn cracked a smile. “Glad to know at least some people still want me around.”

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