Page 11 of Stolen Mate

“And didn’t tell me?”

Lara looked genuinely surprised at the somewhat accusatory tone in Tess’s voice. “I can’t remember how I found out about Otter Cove.” She drummed her fingers on the table. “Oh, right. I was reading an article about little hidden gems in Alaska, and it talked about a charming little village on the peninsula called Otter Cove. Mom got all agitated, and when I asked her about it, she admitted that’s where your birth mother was from.”

“And again, you didn’t tell me?” Tess asked, leaning forward.

“You were never interested in your birth parents or anything about them. Ever. Maybe given the journals, you might want to go up there and see if you have family.”

Tess sat back. “I have all the family I need, and she’s sitting right across from me.”

Lara grinned. “I rest my case. But seriously, I don’t think it would hurt anything to see what you could find out about them.” It was Lara’s turn to lean forward and place her hand over Tess’s. “It will not in any way disrespect or make less of your relationship with me or Mom and Dad. I don’t think it would hurt to discover your roots and at least get some medical information so if we ever need it, we already have it.”

“I guess that makes some sense.”

“I think you should.”

“Hmm. I was going to do a big run to Pike Place, but maybe I should wait. I could be caught up with my work in a day or two…”

“Just buy what you need. I need to stock up at the house. I’ve never had so much storage space. When you get back, we’ll make a day of it. We can shop, eat, maybe even go drink at one of the pubs, and just find some normalcy again.”

“That sounds like a plan.”

They finished their breakfast and drove back into the city. Lara dropped her off and headed for her clinic. Tess went back inside her loft and set about getting the work that had upcoming deadlines put to bed.

Tess stretched at the end of a long day, she walked toward her bedroom, stopping in the doorway to google places to stay in Mystic River. There was only one—a lovely bed and breakfast known as The Refuge. She called and spoke to the owner, whose name was Trudy and who had the loveliest Australian-ish accent, and she booked a room for the following evening. Tess then called and booked a round-trip flight with an open-ended return.

Stripping off her clothes, she grabbed another of the journals as she crawled into bed and began to read…

CHAPTER 6

TESS

Journal Entry, January 3rd

This is all fucked up. Someone was supposed to be waiting for me, but they weren’t. I had no choice but to leave and hope I can escape on my own. I’ve burned my bridges. My fear if I am caught is that they will keep me alive until this baby is born, and then who knows what they will do. Capture is not an option.

I managed to steal a boat. I thought about trying to head south towards the tip of the peninsula and out into the Bering Sea or north up the coast to Anchorage. Both have their pitfalls—there’s not much to the south and across the Bering Sea is Russia. Anchorage would provide more opportunities to get away, but I wasn’t able to steal much of anything, including money, and Anchorage is expensive. I would have to buy everything.

But Kodiak Island is about halfway between Otter Cove and Anchorage. There is plenty of food, and I can live off the land, off the grid, and I can make a place for myself—maybe even do a little guide work out of Kodiak or Mystic River.

I think I’ll navigate up Mystic River and see what there is to see. The sooner I’m off the open water and can hide this boat, the better. I have no doubt they are after me.

Tess was finding reading more than one journal entry at a time to be difficult. They were fraught with the woman’s fear and anxiety. What had happened to her—not only when her ordeal had started but when she’d found herself alone with some cult in Alaska was bone-chilling to think about. To think the woman might have been her birth mother was frightening. Had she been found? Was she dead? Why did her mother seem to know about polar bears? And why had her mother thought the polar bear was protecting her? What the hell had happened?

She’d been dozing. Tess was not the best flyer. She tended to think of airplanes as overgrown tin cans with wings. What was she even doing here? She was flying toward a destination she wasn’t even sure she wanted to go. She could handle the cruising at altitude as long as they didn’t hit a lot of turbulence but take-offs and landings were the worst. And why did everything have to be so crowded? The man sitting next to her was sick. He kept hacking, coughing, and blowing his nose. Tess thought to herself that the only thing worse than sitting next to a sick person on a plane was being the actual sick person.

“Excuse me, miss?” asked the flight attendant.

“Yes?” Tess answered, wondering if she was going to tell her that she would have to do without their complimentary peanuts.

“Can I have you come with me?”

“Uh, sure,” Tess said, sliding out between the sick gentleman and the seat in front of him.

She followed the flight attendant forward into first class, where the flight attendant showed her to a lovely seat by the window with no one next to her.

“First class was supposed to be full. I think both you and Mr. Hastings, the man sitting next to you, would be happier if he could be miserable by himself.”

Being an artist, Tess tended to notice things, storing them away to use in the future. Hastings had been wearing a tailored suit and carrying an expensive briefcase. She’d wondered why he’d been sitting in the main cabin in the first place.

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