The door opened and, yes, it was the looker from the Backdraft parking lot. “Yes?” she said.

“Domenica Garland?”

“Yes. And you are?”

“I’m Sergeant Liam Campbell with the Alaska State Troopers, ma’am,” he said, producing his badge, and smiling his very best smile. He was certain she would expect such a smile from every single man she met. “I wonder if you could spare me a few moments.”

“What’s this about?” she said, not budging.

“May I come in?” He took a step forward.

She fell back with a frown and even that looked good on her. He’d never seen hair and eyes that matched before, the black of ebony, of sunless space, of the slate on the roof. Of the inside of Erik’s cave. She played it up, too; every article of clothing was black as well, button-down tucked into jeans, belt, shoes. As in the parking lot on Monday, everything fit her body so creaselessly that he could have speculated about her underwear. But he was better than that.

She probably wouldn’t know it but the shoes were a dead giveaway that she wasn’t from around here. All Alaskans kicked their shoes off at the door. Christmas at Grandma’s house, the entryway looked like a shoe store.

The interior of this house looked the farthest thing from a shoe store, and the farthest thing from Grandma’s house for that matter. The windows were floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall, and if there was a contest to who had more square feet of glass she would have beaten him and Wy and Gabe McGuire and Jeff’s brewpub all together. The view was of course spectacular because it seemed every view in Blewestown was and because he had the feeling that this woman never settled for less than the best.

Next to the view, the rest of the house shouldn’t have mattered but it was obvious that it did to the person who had built it. Most of it was covered in stone. There was a sort of navy blue slate on the floor, the countertops were brown speckled granite, the backsplash was white marble, and the fireplace surround was a broad strip of—amethyst? The hearth was a block of rose quartz, and the fireplace mantel and the windowsills were green jade.

It was Moria. It was the Hall of the Mountain Kings. It was the mine of the Seven Dwarves. “Dig, dig, dig, with a shovel and a pick,” Liam said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“What a spectacular room,” he said, smiling again as hard as he could.

Her eyes narrowed. “I know you, don’t I?”

“Not formally, no. We, ah, passed in the parking lot of the brewpub on Monday.”

“Oh. Ah. Yes. What’s up, Sergeant? I don’t begin every day with a visit from the troopers.” She checked her phone. “I don’t have long, I’m afraid. I have a meeting in town in half an hour.”

She hadn’t asked him to sit and he had a lively enough sense of self-preservation not to allow himself to get too comfortable in this house. “It’s not good news, I’m afraid. Erik Berglund is dead.”