Okay, Brendan said, but only because I‘ve been trying to seduce you for eight years and this might get me to first base.

In your dreams, she said. Besides, you owe me.

For what? he said in mock outrage.

For serving paper on the Smiths last year, she said, ignoring for the purposes of the current conversation that she‘d been well paid for the task.

I thought you did that because you were secretly in love with me and wanted to bend me to your purpose, he said, hurt.

Kate left with a grin on her face.

The next stop required the Subaru and a lot more self-control. The house was in a quietly affluent cul-de-sac off 100th Avenue in south Anchorage, with a finely tuned yard back and front. Axenia answered the door, baby on her hip, and after a startled moment invited Kate inside with a politeness designed to freeze the marrow in Kate‘s bones. It failed of effect because it was nothing more than she had expected.

Kate and her cousin Axenia had been stuck in a cold war for years. Kate, the elder, had been the one tasked by Emaa to look out for Axenia all through school. The plan—Emaa‘s plan—had been for Axenia to follow Kate to the University of Alaska Fairbanks, there to study some discipline that she could bring back to the Park, to better serve her tribe. That had been the big idea for Kate as well, but Kate had moved to Anchorage instead and gone to work as an investigator for the Anchorage district attorney. Axenia had never gone to college, instead remaining home to run through a series of boyfriends, each of whom she hoped would get her out of the Park and each one of whom proved less worthwhile than the last.

The case that had brought Kate out of retirement on her homestead, following five and a half harrowing years working sex crimes in Anchorage, had concerned the disappearance of Axenia‘s most recent boyfriend, one of Dan‘s rangers and Axenia‘s best prospect to date. When the case ended, Kate went behind their grandmother‘s back and got Axenia a job in Anchorage. Anchorage could be a large, lonely place to someone raised in the Bush, but Kate called in a lot of favors and saw to it that Axenia landed in a preselected social circle.

It turned out that Axenia, in spite of an impassioned plea that Kate help her get out of Dodge, was less than grateful for this masterful orchestration of her life. She became even less grateful as time went on. Raised in the shadow of her legendary cousin, she had always been a little jealous of Kate‘s seniority and of her status within the tribe. Free from the Park‘s parochial vigilance for the first time in her life, Axenia had struck out on her own.

Kate followed her cousin into the kitchen, perched on the proffered stool, and accepted the cup of coffee and the plate of assorted cookies Axenia was honor bound to offer. One thing about Bush hospitality, if you were raised in it it stuck even after you moved to the big city. Kate ate, drank, and attacked. I wanted to talk to you about the mine, she said, pushing away her cup. The board is— Actually, Axenia said with a thin smile, I wanted to talk to you about the mine, too. Mathisen, Dischner has been retained by Global Harvest.