“Two for the road,” he joked. “Let’s do it.”

She felt Makita’s wet nose on her hand and took a moment to scratch him behind the ears. “You mean three. We wouldn’t be alive to tell the tale without Makita.”

Amarok whistled and his dog jumped into the back of the van with him. Evelyn saw Makita licking his face as he leaned back to rest against the interior wall.

With a smile, she closed the doors. Then she got behind the wheel and, taking care to avoid hitting Bishop’s body on the way out, drove them to the truck and then on to Anchorage.

Hilltop, AK—Friday, 4:30 p.m. AKDT

Evelyn could feel the soft skin and hard sinew of Amarok’s naked body pressed up against her own and refused to open her eyes. They’d spent all day yesterday at the hospital, getting patched up and reassuring their friends and families, so she was enjoying being at home with him, alone.

She didn’t want to stir for fear it would wake him and he’d get up. It wasn’t like him to lie around, not in the middle of the day. If he wasn’t working, he generally had some project going. It was bad enough that Phil had been calling every few hours to report various things—that the Fairbanks Police Department had not only found Bishop’s body and sent it to the medical examiner’s office, they’d also impounded his van. That the corpse Amarok discovered at the egg ranch was, in fact, Emmett Virtanen. That Edna Southwick was going to pull through. And that her daughter had called to say she was relieved Evelyn was safe, too.

Evelyn had no idea how long it might be before they heard from Phil or someone else again and planned to relish these quiet few minutes.

“Hey,” he murmured, kissing her head.

Apparently, she didn’t have to worry about waking him. He was already awake and had been able to notice the subtle difference in her breathing or something else to alert him that she was, too. “Hey.”

“You feeling okay?”

“Yeah. But I’m not ready to move quite yet.”

“Me either. I like this too much.”

“How’s your arm?”

“Beginning to throb. I should take another pain pill.”

“Oh no! Here I was scheming to keep you in bed with me for as long as possible and you need something.” She started to roll away from him so she could get it, but he stopped her.

“Don’t leave just yet. It’s not too bad. I can tolerate a few more minutes.”

He shifted onto his back, though, and brought her against him with his good arm.

“Being home is like a dream. I never thought I’d see this place again, ever be with you again,” she said.

“Mmm.” He let his eyes drift closed. “I wouldn’t have let that happen. I would’ve chased Bishop to the ends of the earth, if possible.”

“You did. Isn’t Fairbanks pretty close to one end of the earth?”