Dodging Cupid's Arrow

Chapter One

"One of these days, I really should have my head examined."

Joe leaned forward and scraped at the frost-coated windshield of his Super Cub. His gaze caught the air temperature gauge, a nagging reminder of an ever present danger. The outside temperature was forty degrees below zero and his defroster had reached its limit. If he flew much higher, he'd be flying blind. Or the engine would quit from the cold and he wouldn't be flying at all.

He peered through the windshield at the craggy ridges below, so sheer not even snow clung to the rock. Denali. "The High One," as the native Athabascans had named it. Mount McKinley was the highest peak in North America and a magnet for climbers worldwide. And buzzing back and forth between Talkeetna and the mountain were the Denali fliers, those pilots who ferried climbers and gear to "Kahiltna International," the name given to the glacier at the bottom of the climbing route.

Since Joe had arrived in Alaska five years before, he'd heard tale after tale of their exploits-risky landings and daring rescues, true artists behind the controls of their airplanes. He'd grudgingly admired them, until he'd been accepted into the fold. After that, he'd held them in even greater awe.

His initiation had been achieved more by default than daring. He'd been flying a client over "the Hill" on a sight-seeing trip when he'd noticed a spot of color near the edge of the Kahiltna Glacier near Denali's base. He dropped low then circled, his curiosity piqued. What he found had sent a chill through his blood. A Cessna, flipped upside down, the white belly of the plane barely visible against the snow. If he hadn't been looking in that exact spot, he would have missed it, along with countless other pilots flying in the area.

With the approval of his adventure-hungry passenger, he put his own plane down near the crash site, then struggled through the crusty snow to the overturned plane. The two of them had dragged three injured passengers and the unconscious pilot from the Cessna. And later, when more help had been summoned and all had been evacuated to the hospital in Anchorage, he'd been credited with saving the life of one of Denali's favorite fliers, Skip Christiansen, and given honorary membership in the elite fraternity. They'd nicknamed him Eagle Eyes Brennan.

Skip had talked him into this current mess-searching for a stranded Swedish climber who'd attempted a solo winter ascent of Denali. Skip had flown the woman in a week before and now had been charged with coordinating an air search to aid the park rangers. Six planes swept along the climbing route, each one required to descend out of the thinner air for a time after each run for safety's sake.

Had Joe been safe at home in Muleshoe rather than hanging out in a Talkeetna watering hole, trying to charm a beautiful girl into spending the evening with him, he would never have been drawn into the search, flying too high, too cold, breathing bottled oxygen every now and then to keep his head clear.

But Joe Brennan was never one to shrink from a challenge. And flying at the far edge of his talents and near the mechanical limitations of his plane was exactly the adrenaline rush he'd come to crave. Still, that didn't mean that he couldn't question his good sense once he was caught up in another risky venture.

"All right, Brennan," he muttered to himself. "Let's reevaluate your escape plan."

Although Joe was considered a gutsy flyer by his Denali pals, he tempered that characteristic with a good dose of self-preservation. No matter where he flew, over ice or rock, forest or mountain, he always had a contingency plan, a way out if oil pressure dropped or his engine failed.

He spotted a small saddle of clear snow to the north and fixed it in his mind. If worse came to worse, he could put the Cub down there, landing uphill to slow the plane, then turning around to take off downhill. An air current, swirling near the sheer rock face, buffeted the Cub and Joe cursed.

"A solo ascent in the middle of an Alaskan winter," he muttered. "Now, there's a great idea, lady. Why not just jump into a crevasse and get it over with?"

The truth be told, he couldn't begrudge the climber her passion for a new challenge. Since he'd started flying in the bush, he'd accepted one dangerous job after another, always cognizant of his limitations but never afraid to push a little harder. He'd landed on glaciers and sandbars, lakes and landing strips in all conditions, in weather not fit for flying. And he'd loved it all.

He scratched another patch of ice off the windshield. "Come on, sweetheart. Show me where you are. Point the way." He pushed his sunglasses up on his head and scanned the area. Though he was slightly west of the usual route to the summit, he knew that a climber could easily become confused from the altitude or exhaustion.

One misstep was all it took and hypoxia would take over, dulling the senses until frostbite and hypothermia set in. Without a partner to take up the slack, a solo ascent was a ticket to trouble. Before long, a climber would sit down in the snow, unable to move, unable to think. That's when either death or the Denali fliers moved in, snatching half-frozen climbers off the face of the mountain and bringing them back to safety.

Wispy clouds surrounded the plane for a moment and Joe scratched the ice off his side window. "I don't need weather," he muttered at the approaching cloud bank. He dropped lower, beneath the cloud level, heading back down the mountain. The head of the Kahiltna Glacier passed below him now, safe landing and breathable air at eleven thousand feet. Suddenly, a flash of color glittered from an ice face in front of him. He stared at the spot lower on the glacier, squinting to make out a bright blue scrap of nylon.

As he descended on the glacier, the patch of blue became a pack, half-buried in the snow. He looked closer and thought he saw a rope tracing a path into the shadow of a deep crevasse.

Joe snatched up his radio. "Denali Rescue, this is Piper three-six-three-nine Delta Tango. I think I have her. She's well west of the usual route on the lower part of the glacier. It looks like she fell into a crevasse. She was roped, but I don't see her. Over."

The radio crackled and he recognized Skip's voice. "Three-nine Delta, this is seven-four Foxtrot. Good eyes! I'm just off your left wing. I'll go down and search until Park Rescue arrives. Over."

"I found her, Skip, I'm going down."

"Buddy, that's a tricky landing. You catch a ski and you're done, never mind negotiating those crevasses. I took her in, I'll get her out."

"You just back me up. I'm heading down. Three-nine Delta, out."

Joe banked to the east, drawing a lazy circle around the stranded climber. Time after time, he passed over the ice field, flying from bottom to top as he judged the surface, memorizing every bump and hole in the ice. His pulse pounded in his head as he descended, his eyes fixed on a point above him on the mountain. An instant later, he felt the skis shudder and he cut the power. Slowly, the plane climbed the face of the glacier until it would go no further. Then he maneuvered it around until it faced down the slope, ready to take off in the same tracks he'd landed in.

Not two hundred feet below him, he saw the rope. Joe yanked the flap on his hood over his face and adjusted his sunglasses, then pushed against the door with his shoulder. He wasn't sure what he would find, but he hoped for the best.

He grabbed a canister of oxygen that he kept in the plane for high altitude flying, then struggled through the snow, following the rope until the snow disappeared in front of him. Above him, he could hear the drone of Skip's engine as he circled, looking for his own spot to land. He tugged on the rope. "Hey, can you hear me?"

A weak shout came back at him. "Oh, God. I thought I heard a plane. I'm tangled in my ropes. You'll have to pull me out."

Joe sat in the snow and dug his heels into the icy surface, then grabbed the rope and began to haul the climber up over the edge. To his relief, she wasn't a large woman and she had enough strength to help him along.

Finally, her parka hood appeared in the snow in front of him.

By the time he reached her, she'd collapsed. Placing the mask over her frostbitten face, he ordered her to breathe. Then he pushed her goggles up on her forehead and watched as her eyes fluttered open. A weak smile curled the corners of her lips. "Are you real?" she croaked.

Joe gave the woman his most charming smile, but it was hidden behind the flap of his down jacket. Even her frostbitten cheeks and nose didn't obliterate her pretty face. "Yeah, I'm real. And you're lucky to be alive."

"I didn't think I'd ever get out of that crevasse," she murmured with her lilting accent "I spent the night there just barely hanging on."

"Can you stand?"

She nodded and he helped her to her feet, holding the oxygen mask over her face. Wrapping her arm around his shoulders, he pulled her toward the plane.

"I owe you my life," she said, gasping for breath as she placed one foot in front of the other.

Joe smiled inwardly, his mind anticipating the reaction he'd get back at the lodge. Both Hawk and Tanner had marveled at his particular talent with women. To the amazement of both of his buddies, he always managed to find himself in the company of the most beautiful women Alaska had to offer. And now he'd done it again, finding a beautiful blonde in a crevasse on the Kahiltna Glacier.

"No problem," he said. "It's my mission in life to rescue damsels in distress."

She stopped to draw a few deep breaths then looked up at him. "I don't know how I can ever repay you."

Joe grinned. He was a lucky man, in more ways than one. "How about dinner? I mean, after you've had a chance to thaw out. I know this nice little place in Talkeetna that serves great pasta."

Perrie Kincaid pulled the collar of her jacket up around her neck and cursed at the cold, unrelenting drizzle. Her eyes scanned the dark street from her spot in the shadow of a deserted building, then came back to the black Mercedes parked next to the loading dock. A bare lightbulb swung slowly in the salt-tanged breeze, sending an eerie wavering light over the battered steel door of the abandoned brick warehouse.

Inside the car, the glow of a cigarette illuminated the profile of the driver. Mad Dog Scanlon. She'd been following Mad Dog's boss so long, Perrie felt as if she and the goon were old friends. She squinted at her watch, then drew a deep breath and cursed again. "Come on, what's taking them so long? It's a simple deal, in and out. All I need is a good look at their faces, just confirmation, and then this story is front-page news."

The smell of salt water surrounded her, drifting inland from the sound with the constant damp that seemed to hang over the city of Seattle in the wintertime. She shifted on her feet and rubbed her hands together, trying to warm her icy fingers. If she had to wait much longer, she might just start to mildew, right along with everything else in this seedy neighborhood.

She should be used to the weather by now. Seattle had been her home ever since she'd left grad school ten years ago. She'd come west, from the University of Chicago, to take a job at the Seattle Star. At first she had written obituaries, then moved up to a job in the Lifestyles section. She'd almost been stuck writing fluff for the rest of her career, when the city desk put out a call for a staff writer.

Perrie had begged Milt Freeman, the city editor, to take her on, to give her a chance with hard news, even though she'd been writing gardening and cooking articles for the previous three years. After a week of constant appeals and a case of his favorite scotch, he had finally relented and offered her the job.

Milt had told her afterward that he'd been worn down by her tenacity-not the scotch-the same tenacity that she'd used to become the Star's top investigative reporter. The same stubborn determination she was drawing on this very minute. A good reporter would long for a hot bath and a warm bed right about now. But Perrie considered herself a great reporter, and she was exactly where she wanted to be. Right in the thick of things.

Perrie Kincaid's byline was hot. She had broken four major stories in Seattle in the past two years, and three of them had been picked up by the national wire services. Her peers in the broadcast industry were in awe of her, unable to snatch even the smallest scoops from under her perceptive gaze. And drizzle or none, she was going to break this story, too.

The seemingly abandoned warehouse was actually the nerve center of a major smuggling ring that dealt in stolen luxury autos, cars that had probably been parked in front of one of Seattle's trendy restaurants just hours before. Once stolen, they were loaded into containers and shipped to the Far East, where they were traded for uncut heroin, which was then loaded on the boat for the return trip to Seattle.

The smuggling ring was only a small part of the story. There had been blackmail and attempted murder. But the part that would nab her the Pulitzer was the trail that led right to the floor of the U.S. Congress, to the dishonorable congressman from the great state of Washington, Evan T. Dearborn.

Somewhere inside the warehouse, Dearborn's chief of staff was meeting with Mad Dog's boss, the man in charge of this little operation, Seattle businessman and resident sleazeball, Tony Riordan. For ten years, Riordan had been living on the edge of the law, always involved in something illegal but careful enough not to get caught-and using the profits from his "business" dealings to buy a politician or two. He'd snagged a big one when he'd snagged Dearborn.

Well, Riordan was about to go down, and he was going to take a whole host of his slimy friends with him, including the congressman. The police had been on Riordan's tail for almost as long as Perrie had. Perrie reached into her pocket and fingered her cell phone. Sooner or later she'd have to call in the cops. But not until she had the final piece of the puzzle, hard evidence that would link the congressman's office to Tony Riordan. And not until her story was in black and white for all to see.

The sound of a car door opening brought her attention back to the Mercedes and she watched as Mad Dog stepped out of the car. With nervous hands, she reached for the camera that was slung over her shoulder, praying the shutter hadn't rusted tight in the two hours she'd been standing in the rain. She pulled off the lens cover, then held the camera up to her eye and focused the telephoto lens on the doorway.

A moment later two figures emerged, flanked by a pair of Tony's hulking bodyguards. Perrie smiled to herself as she recognized Tony and the congressman's chief of staff in the viewfinder. Calmly, she refocused and slid her finger to the shutter. But just as she was about to snap her first photo, the sound of a ringing cell phone fractured the quiet of the night.

Startled, Perrie looked over the top of the camera, wondering who would be calling Riordan at two in the morning. But as the phone rang again, she realized that the group on the loading dock was looking in her direction. The sound was coming from her coat pocket! In a flash, the two goons on the dock pulled guns and all hell broke loose.

Perrie dropped the camera and fumbled for her cell phone just as the first shot whizzed past her head and careened off the building behind her. She slid deeper into the shadows and flipped open the phone, wincing as another bullet hissed a little too close.

"Perrin? Perrin, is that you?"

Perrie groaned at the sound of her mother's voice. "Mom, I can't talk right now. I'll call you back." She ducked her head as another shot hit the brick wall above her.

"Perrie, this will just take a minute."

"Mom, it's two in the morning!"

"Honey, I know you don't sleep soundly and I figured you were up anyway. I just wanted to let you know that Mrs. Wilke's son is coming home for a visit. He's a dentist, you know, and a bachelor. I think it would be nice if-Perrin? Is that a gunshot I heard?"

Perrie cursed out loud, then slowly worked her way along the base of the wall. "Mother, I really can't talk now! I'll call you back in a few minutes." She flipped off the phone, then dialed 911, her fingers trembling.

When the operator answered, she quickly gave her name and her location. From where she sat, huddled in the dark, it sounded as if she were in the middle of a war zone. The gunfire was coming from two directions now, and she seemed to be caught right in the line of fire.

Were the cops already on the scene? Or was there another piece to this puzzle she didn't know about? She slid over and risked a look at the melee across the street. Riordan's men were still shooting at her, but someone else was shooting at them. Her missing puzzle piece was heavily armed with semiautomatic weapons, mat much she could tell.

"Ma'am, please stay on the line. Is the shooting still going on?"

"Yes, it's still going on!" Perrie shouted. "Can't you hear it?" She held the phone out, giving the operator a taste of her predicament.

"Just remain calm, ma'am."

"I've got to get my camera," she said, realizing it was the first calm and rational thought she'd had since the shooting started.

"Ma'am, stay right where you are. We'll have a car there in about two minutes."

"I need my camera." Perrie slid along the base of the building, back the way she'd come, her eyes fixed on the camera lying near a puddle of water on the rain-slicked pavement. Stretching her arm out, she reached for the strap just inches away from her fingertips. Another gunshot whizzed by and she could almost feel its heat through her jacket sleeve. She winced, then made one desperate lunge for the camera strap.

Her fingers closed around it and she dragged it and herself back to the safety of the shadows. "A picture is worth a thousand words," she muttered as she wiped off the wet lens with her jacket cuff. "Not a thousand of my words. A picture would only be worth about a hundred of my words." Her gaze fixed on a dark patch on her sleeve and she sighed as she tried to brush the mud away.

But it wasn't mud on her sleeve. The touch of her own fingers sent a shard of pain up her arm and she blinked in surprise. "Oh, damn," she murmured, rubbing the sticky blood between her fingers. "I've been shot."

A smile curled the corners of her mouth and she giggled to herself, half out of shock and half out of disbelief. "I've been shot." She picked up the cell phone. "I've been shot," she repeated to the emergency operator.

"Ma'am, you say you've been shot?"

"I've always wondered what it would feel like," Perrie explained. "A bullet piercing your own skin. Would it feel hot or cold? Would you know it happened right away or would it take a while?" She closed her eyes and fought back a wave of lightheadedness.

"Ma'am, please don't move. We'll have a car there in thirty seconds. And an ambulance is on the way. Can you tell me where you've been shot? Please, ma'am, stay right where you are."

"I'm not going anywhere," Perrie said as she tipped her head back to rest on the rough brick wall. The rain spattered on her face and she welcomed the cold. It was the only thing that seemed real about this whole incident. "Wild horses couldn't drag me away from this story now," she murmured as the wail of sirens echoed in the distance.

The next half hour passed in a blur of flashing red lights and frantic paramedics. They had hustled her inside an ambulance and bandaged her arm, but she'd refused to be transported to the hospital, choosing instead to watch the scene unfold in the rainy night in front of the warehouse, questioning the detectives who collected the evidence of the Shootout.

"Perrie!"

She glanced over her shoulder once to see Milt Freeman approaching, his expression filled with fury. Ignoring his summons, she turned back to the detective and continued her own interrogation.

"Damn it, Kincaid, what the hell happened here?"

"I'm sure you know all about it by now," Perrie called.

The detective looked up as Milt grabbed her arm. She winced in pain and Milt frowned. "Get her to the hospital," the detective advised. "And get her out of my hair. She took a bullet in the arm."

"What?" Milt boomed.

"I'm fine," Perrie insisted, her attention on the detective. "Why don't you let me get a peek at that wallet?"

The detective gave Milt an exasperated look, then walked away, shaking his head.

"This is it," Milt said, drawing her along toward the ambulance. "Two weeks ago, they tampered with the brakes on your car. Last week, they broke into your apartment. And now you're dodging bullets in the middle of a wise-guy war. I want you out of Seattle. Tonight."

"Yeah, right. Where am I going to go?" Perrie asked.

"Alaska," Milt said, pushing her down to sit on the wide bumper of the ambulance.

"Alaska?" Perrie gasped. "I'm not going to Alaska."

"You're going," Milt countered. "And I don't want you to give me any grief about it. You were shot tonight and you're acting like it was just another day at the office."

"It was only a flesh wound," she grumbled, glancing at the bandage around her arm. "The bullet just grazed me." She grinned at her boss. He was not nearly as amused as she was. "Milt, I can't believe I just said that. This is like those guys that used to cover combat zones in Vietnam. I feel like I've finally earned my stripes. I'm not some wimpy Lifestyles writer anymore. I've actually been wounded in the line of duty."

Milt crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the rear door of the ambulance, sending Perrie a disapproving glare. "I've called an old friend of mine up in a little town called Muleshoe. Joe Brennan is his name. He runs an air charter service. I go fishing up there in the summer and he always flies me in and out. He owes me a few favors."

Perrie ignored his story and concentrated on her own. Milt was a little upset right now. He'd get over it. "The way I see it, we should run the story now. As far as I'm concerned, we've got all the confirmation we need. So I didn't get a picture. I saw Dearborn's chief of staff there with Riordan. That's the connection."

Milt cursed softly. "All I see here is two dead wise guys and no sign of either Dearborn or Riordan. You've got a big empty hole where you thought you had a solid story."

"I do have a story!" Perrie protested. "And it's here, not in Alaska."

Milt Freeman leveled his gaze on hers. "You're acting like Alaska is Siberia. It is one of the fifty states, you know."

"Yeah, but it used to be Siberia," she shot back. "Before we bought it from the Russians. I'm so close on this story, Milt, I can smell the ink already. I just need a few more pieces of the puzzle and we can run with it."

"What you have right now, Perrin Kincaid, is a price on your head. Someone knows you're onto this story and they're not about to let you write it."

Perrie stood. "I've got to get back to the office."

"You're going to the hospital and then you're going to Alaska."

"My files are back at the office. I've got work to do."

"You can turn all your files over to me," Milt said. "And I'll give them to the police."

"You'll do no such thing!"

"And I sent Ginny over to your house to pack some clothes for you. After the doctors check you out, I'm taking you to the airport."

"I'm not going to Alaska," she repeated.

"Whoever shot you tonight will be looking for a second chance. And I've spent too much time turning you from a Lifestyles hack into a decent reporter to have you end up dead. You're going to Alaska, Kincaid."

She shook her head stubbornly. "No, I'm not. I'm staying right here and I'm going to break this story. Now, what do you think about-"

"The police are going to break this story," he interrupted. "After they figure out who shot you, you can come back and write it." He reached into his jacket pocket and held out an envelope. "I had a feeling something like this was going to happen. There's an airline ticket to Fairbanks in there. Joe Brennan will fly you into Muleshoe. I've got a nice safe, cozy cabin for you there. No phones, no bullets, no wise guys. Just peace and quiet. I even asked Joe to stock it with popcorn since you seem to think it's a fair substitute for all of the major food groups. I want you somewhere safe until things cool down around here."

She snatched her notepad from the back pocket of her jeans, wincing as a pain shot down to her fingers, then scribbled an errant thought about the evening's events. "I'm not going, Milt," she said, flipping through her notes. "I have work to do. I won't just sit around all day long waiting for you to call me back here. I can't."

"That's why I've got you a story to cover," he continued. "And this is not a request, Ace-this is an order from your boss."

Perrie glanced up at him and laughed harshly. Milt rarely pulled rank on her. They were more a team than boss and employee. "Oh, yeah, right. What kind of story? Underworld kingpins set up shop in Mulesfoot, Alaska? I don't think so."

"Just last week, three young women from Seattle left their homes and their jobs and traveled to Muleshoe to become mail-order brides. They answered an ad in our paper. I heard your old boss in Lifestyles talking about it. She was planning to send a reporter up to cover their story. I convinced her we should send you."

"What?" Indignant, Perrie jumped up and paced back and forth in front of her boss. "You're sending me back to Lifestyles? God, Milt, I hate writing that dreck." She cursed a blue streak, then shook her head stubbornly. "I'm not going. You can fire me if you want, but I'm staying here to write this story."

Milt leaned closer, fixing Perrie with an intractable gaze. "You're going to Muleshoe, Perrin Kincaid. You're going to rest and recover from your wound and I will call you when it's safe to come back. This story will still be here, I promise."

"I'm not going," Perrie repeated. "I'm not. And you can't make me."