“Flirt.”
“Guilty.”
She moved quickly up to the cabin’s front door; the glow of lights in the windows guaranteed, she thought, that someone was home—and probably watching, because having a strange vehicle drop by in this remote expanse was likely worth noting.
The door opened on her knock, and she was facing the business end of a double-barreled shotgun, held very competently by a woman who’d probably grown up with it. The smile was gone, but the face was the same as the picture on the blog. Kiera Johannsen, in the flesh.
“Don’t mean to be rude,” Johannsen said, “but who the fuck are you, and why are you on my porch?”
Bryn slowly raised her hands. Her skin felt very exposed to the wind whipping across the snow, and she shivered as it found ways inside the neck of her sweater, under the parka she’d worn open. “Bryn Davis,” she said. “You don’t know me.”
“Damn right I don’t.”
“Calvin Thorpe sent me.”
That made the woman blink and take a step back. The shotgun, though, didn’t come down. “Why would Cal send you? Where is he?”
“He’s dead,” Bryn said. “I’m sorry. He was killed in an explosion in California.”
“Oh,” she said blankly, as if she hadn’t understood. And maybe she hadn’t. “Oh.” The second time had weight to it, and emotion. She sagged a little, as if she’d received a jab to the ribs and couldn’t quite get her breath. But she didn’t look surprised. “You came all the way here to tell me that?”
“No,” Bryn said. “I came because Dr. Thorpe said I could trust you. He left something with you to hold, and I need it. It’s important.”
It was the wrong thing to say, because the woman’s light blue eyes seemed to catch fire, and her face tightened. So did her aim. “I don’t know you. You show up out of nowhere and tell me to hand something over? Why would I do that? How do I even know that Cal is really dead?”
“Ma’am, I’m sorry. I wish I had time to tell you everything, and explain all that happened, but . . . there just isn’t a way I can do it. I was with him when it happened. He wanted me to do this, and I intend to do it, because it’ll save lives. That’s what he wanted to do, in the end. Save lives.”
For a few seconds nothing changed, and then Johannsen shook her head, as if shaking off a bothersome fly. It wasn’t the no that Bryn was expecting, though. “That sounds like him,” she said. “He believed . . . he believed science could save everything. Everyone. I told him he was a dreamer, you know. But he said he’d proved me wrong. He said—you know, he got drunk once and said one day, he’d cure death.” She shook her head again. “He was a fool sometimes. Science can repair, but it can destroy just as fast. I kept trying to make him understand that.”
Bryn said nothing. After another few heartbeats, the woman backed up and lowered the shotgun. “All right,” she said. “Come in. But I warn you, make a wrong move, and I’ll blow you into polar bear bait.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Bryn said. “You need a lot of that? Polar bear bait?”
“You’d be surprised,” Johannsen said. “Sit down. No, I’m not making you tea; I’m not stupid. But if you’re sitting with hands flat on the table, you’re not likely to make me shoot you.”
Bryn moved to the small square breakfast table and sat in one of the two wooden chairs—handmade, felt like, and not entirely steady. One leg was a bit too short, and it clunked as she settled her weight. She put both hands flat on the table’s surface, and waited.
She didn’t have to wait long before Johannsen said, “Tell me what happened to Cal.”
“You know he went on the run?” Bryn got a quick nod. “He was hiding out. We tracked him down because we needed his help.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re trying to stop the same things from happening that he was afraid of,” Bryn said. “And they are happening. He agreed to help us get our hands on a sample of a drug that could change everything, but he was betrayed by his brother-in-law.”
That, finally, was the right thing to say, because a spasm of dislike went across Johannsen’s face. “Not hard to believe,” she said. “And?”
“And his dead drop was compromised. It was a trap. We were both caught in it, but he—he sacrificed himself to save me. Before he did, he said to find you. He said you have the other sample.”
“I don’t—” She went perfectly still for a moment, and then continued. “I don’t have anything from him.”
“You do,” Bryn said, with perfect confidence. “Please. I promise you, it’s very important. And it will make a difference. Cal changed his mind about what he was doing, what he believed was right. He would have wanted you to know it.”
For just a moment, those sharp blue eyes seemed a little less suspicious. Just for a moment. But Johannsen came right back on point. “You found me just fine,” she said. “Should I be worried?”
“Probably,” Bryn said. “You weren’t trying to hide. And that’s fine, except that the people who killed Calvin, who killed his family . . . They won’t stop. They’ll never stop until someone stops them. Do you understand? They’ll kill you because you knew him, and you might be a loose end. I don’t want that. If you give me what he left with you, we can help you get to Barrow. From there, you should get somewhere else. Don’t tell me where, just . . . go. And don’t come back.”
“My work—”
“Your work won’t matter when you’re dead and this whole cabin burns to the ground. They’ll probably make it look like an accident. Or maybe they’ll leave the cabin, and fake a bear attack. Nobody would question it, would they?”
“Not around here,” she said. “We don’t have much of a CSI team.” Johannsen crossed to the windows and looked out. “You have friends with you?”
“Three,” Bryn said. “Two out by the mailbox, watching for any incoming traffic. One by the SUV. They’re here for your protection as much as mine.”
That woke a bleak, but real, smile on the other woman’s face. “Bet that wouldn’t be true if I blew a big ol’ hole in your chest,” she said. “You could have come in here guns blazing and just taken it, you know.”
“I know,” Bryn said. She kept her hands on the table. “I could do that right now, if I wanted.”
It was a warning, but a gentle one, and she saw the recognition of it in Johannsen’s face. For a long heartbeat, the woman thought about it, and then sighed and crossed the small room to open the front door. She leaned out and said, “You, by the car. It’s cold out here. Come inside. I’m getting what you want.”
Patrick came in with all due caution, sidearm ready, and immediately saw Bryn sitting at the table. She nodded to him, and he relaxed. But he didn’t put the sidearm away, either. “Ma’am,” he said to Johannsen, as she shut the door behind him. “Starting to get a little worried.”
“I needed to make sure. Sit down, please. Hands flat on the table, just like your friend. I’ll get what you want.”
The shotgun was at port arms, not an active threat, but Bryn could see him debating the move. He finally said, “No, ma’am, if it’s all the same to you, I’ll go with you. Just in case of unfriendlies.”
“Well, come on then, let’s get this over with,” she said, and led the way into the back room. Bryn rose and followed after Patrick.
Inside was an entirely different environment from the rustic little cabin’s main living area; it hummed with computers and equipment Bryn couldn’t immediately identify. Huge refrigerators took up most of the space—they were all labeled, but the designations didn’t mean anything to Bryn. Ice cores, she supposed. Climatologists collected a lot of those, didn’t they?