Leni opened the door and she and Mama practically tumbled out of the pickup in their haste to disappear. Hand in hand, they slogged through the mud and climbed the steps and opened the door, slamming it shut behind them, wishing they could lock it, but they knew better. In one of his rages, he might burn the place down to get to Mama.

Leni went to the window, peeled the curtain aside, looked out.

The truck was there, puffing into the night, its headlights two bright beams.

She could see him in silhouette, talking to himself.

“He did it,” Leni said, standing close. “Vandalized the tavern.”

“No. He was home. In bed with me. And it’s not the kind of thing he would do.”

A part of Leni wanted to keep this from her mother, to spare her pain, but the truth was burning a hole in Leni’s soul. Sharing it was the only way to put out the flames. They were a team, she and Mama. Together. They didn’t keep secrets from each other. “After you fell asleep, he took the truck to town. I saw him leave, with an ax.”

Mama lit a cigarette. Exhaled heavily. “I thought for once…”

Leni got it. Hope. A shiny thing, a lure for the unwary. She knew how seductive it could be, and how dangerous. “What do we do?”

“Do? He was already pissed about losing his pipeline job, and now this thing with the saloon—with Tom—could push him over the edge.”

Leni felt her mother’s fear, and the shame that was its silent twin. “We are going to have to be very careful. This thing could blow up.”

Chapter Fourteen

FOURTEEN

April in Fairbanks was an unreliable month. This year, an unseasonable cold gripped the town, snow fell, the birds stayed away, the rivers stayed frozen. Even the old-timers began to complain, and they had spent decades in this town that was called the coldest in America.

Matthew walked away from the ice rink after practice, his hockey stick slung over his shoulders. He knew he looked like an ordinary seventeen-year-old in a sweat-dampened hockey uniform and boots but looks could be deceiving. He knew it, and they knew it, the kids he’d gone to school with for the past few years. Oh, they were friendly enough (no one judged anyone this far from civilization; you could be whoever you wanted to be), but they gave him a wide berth. Rumors of his “breakdown” had spread faster than a wildfire on the Kenai. Before he took his seat in his first class in ninth grade, he’d already had a reputation. High school kids, even in the wilds of Alaska, were still herd animals. They sensed when there was a weak member in their midst.