Dead of Winter

Dead Of Winter

Rebecca Zanetti

CHAPTER 1

A brutal sun cut across the icy Alaskan landscape with a defiant glare, brightening instead of warming the frozen runway outside. Mountains rose all around, their jagged peaks rocky through the barren snow, an invitation from

Mother Nature to challenge her and lose.
FBI Special Agent Ophelia Spilazi rubbed her arms through

her leather jacket, safely ensconced in the warming hut. The silent, empty, lonely warming hut that truly didn’t provide warmth. A wooden bench ran alongside one wall, the only furniture in the rickety structure. Icicles hung from the eaves outside, several long enough to touch the ground, while the meager sun warmed them, making the ice sparkle like diamonds.

The sheer isolation of the area was both intriguing and ominous.

A low hum pierced the thundering silence outside, and her breath quickened in natural response. She craned her neck to see out the frozen, crud-covered window to the unreal blue sky, her shoulders tensing even more as a dot of a plane dipped over the nearest mountain and dropped fast to land.

She blinked.

The small plane hit hard, bounced several times, and skidded back and forth before lurching to a drunken halt to the right of the so-called runway.

The plane shuddered and the engine silenced, the machine looking miniature against the wild mountains that served as a backdrop. Her stomach lurched. She wanted to take another Valium, but she had to at least appear professional to these nomads who chose to live in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

The pilot jumped out, and she stopped breathing at her first sight of him. Wavy black hair framed a hard-cut face, scruff covered his rugged jaw, and aviator glasses shielded his eyes. His ancestry was difficult to gauge, but his features were native and strong. Possibly some Inuit or Indigenous American heritage. He had to be well over six feet tall, muscled and oddly graceful, even with a slight limp.

She zeroed in on his left leg. He favored it slightly but didn’t allow it to shorten his stride.

Interesting.

He wore a heavy leather jacket, jeans, and dark boots, his shielded gaze at her having a punch of power, even through the dingy window.

She swallowed, grateful that sunglasses hid her eyes, which had to be wide and full of doubt after witnessing that excruci‐ ating landing on the ice. The man approaching her wasn’t anything close to the old, grizzly, and bearded pilot who’d brought her from Anchorage, the one who had said—repeatedly —that she was nuts to keep going west with a late but devas‐ tating winter coming. She’d imagined someone similar picking her up today.

This guy was beyond imagination.

He pulled open the door and paused, instant heat rippling from him. “Special Agent Spilazi?” That voice. A slow, deep roll that contrasted with the stark beauty around them.

“Call me Ophelia.” She held out a hand, still feeling off- balance. She was tall for a woman, very, but he towered over her.

His dark eyebrows rose, and he shook with her after a brief pause that almost went on too long. His hand was warm, big, and gentle, the shake to the point. “Your title suits you better.”

Electricity zipped along her wrist from the contact. It took her a moment to digest his comment and then hide her surprise, again glad she wore the sunglasses to protect her eyes and expression. Nobody in DC would’ve been so forward upon meeting her.

“You don’t know me,” she countered.

His grunt was neither assent nor denial. He released her and grabbed the two overlarge suitcases, hefting them easily, turning back toward the waiting plane.

Her mouth opened and closed. She scrambled to follow him into the frigid air. “Do you need me to take one of those?” Both had been over the weight limit on her commercial flights and a pain to lug through the Anchorage airport.

“No.” His stride didn’t shorten.

Well, all right. If he wanted to put out his back, it was fine by her. Although, he didn’t seem to be struggling much. In the slightest. The guy looked to be in great shape, no doubt about it. He opened the plane’s cargo door and roughly plunked the suit‐ cases inside, partially turning. “Backpack here or up with you?”

She’d forgotten her pack and couldn’t help the sigh that escaped when she shrugged it off to hand over. The meager case files she held had been heavier than expected after a long trek. While she didn’t like having her gun out of reach, she wouldn’t need it in the air. Shooting her pilot would be a disaster. “Back here is fine.”

He secured the pack with the luggage and gestured around the other side of the plane.

She faltered and then preceded him, carefully picking her way across the ice in her new boots. Once on the other side, she waited for him to open the door to the co-pilot’s seat. Her knees trembled.

Only one eyebrow went up this time. “Afraid to fly?” He leaned against the side of the craft, his stance casual in the freezing cold as if he had all day for a conversation.

The guy didn’t like complete sentences, did he? She nodded. Before he could launch into the usual lecture, she held up a hand. “I understand flying is safer than driving, and there are all sorts of measures to keep airplanes accident-free. I also know you could land this on any flat surface and get us to safety.” None of that mattered when anxiety rose.

“Honey, I could barely land this thing here with plenty of room. If anything goes wrong, we’re dead.” He pushed the sunglasses up on his head, revealing eyes greener than the sharpest emerald.

A vise gripped her throat, an invisible one, and she breathed deeply to calm herself. “You’re not a pilot?”

He lifted one powerful shoulder in a tough-guy shrug. “Not really.”

Her spine straightened on its own. “You don’t have a pilot’s license?”

His flash of a grin was as charming as it was unexpected. “Nope.”

Her shoulders snapped back. If he said one more word, her body would be at full attention whether she liked it or not. “Then what the hell are you doing flying that thing?”

“We got notice in Knife’s Edge that you were out here. Somebody had to come get you. I was the only one sober enough.” He rubbed the scruff across his angled jaw.

“Sober enough?” She backed a step away. The sparkle in his green eyes caught her. Was he messing with her?

He studied her face and then gave another grunt she couldn’t decipher. “Listen, Agent.”

“Ophelia,” she protested, her stomach doing odd flip-flops that had nothing to do with her fear of flying.

“I’d like to keep your title in mind.” He pulled the door open wider. “A hungover pilot is the least of your worries in an Alaskan winter. Another late but dangerous snowfall has about another day to arrive, and winds will make flying impossible. Darkness is gonna fall for months—for good, it’ll seem. You want me to take you back to Anchorage right now. Trust me.”

Trust him? Yeah, right. “I’m not getting into a plane with you.” Being unwanted was nothing new to her, yet her chest chilled even more.

He might’ve winced, but the hard planes in the stone that made up his spectacular face barely moved. “I’m your only choice unless you want to wait for spring. I doubt you know how to hunt, so you’ll starve in that little warming hut before you freeze. Well, probably.”

She grabbed her temper with sheer will and shoved her glasses onto her head. “There must be another pilot and another plane coming at some point.”

“No other plane and no other pilot. Probably for months.” He looked up at the startling blue sky. “Winter is a month late, so it’s gonna come in fast. Today.”

She drew her phone free of her jacket and shook it. No service.

He chuckled. “Where would you put a cell tower around here?”

Good point. She slid the phone back into the warmth. “How intoxicated are you?”

“I’m fine. Also, the winds are better, and the runway’s much bigger in Anchorage, so how about I take you there? Cell service actually works there all the time, and in Knife’s Edge, it’s spotty —to say the least. It’s already December, and you don’t want to miss the holidays with family, do you?”

Her temples began to ache. “I’m fine. Really. We should go.”

“You should reconsider.” His voice crashed beyond gruff to nearly raw. “Trust me. Knife’s Edge during wintertime is no place for a city girl.”

She’d stopped being a girl a long time ago. He’d come just to make her return to the city? Not once in her life had she backed down from a challenge. However, this one may result in her crashing into a mountain. Either way, she had to get into that tiny plane with him, so she’d continue on her mission, and it wasn’t like she had anybody to worry about for the holidays. “This woman can handle it. Please take me—safely—to Knife’s Edge.”

His grunt failed to provide reassurance. “It’s your mistake to make.” He leaned in to tug a seat harness out of the way, bringing warmth and the scent of something new. Spicy, male, and undefinable. “Our window to fly is short, and the drinks are already lining up at the tavern. Gotta go. Now.”

Could he get any grumpier? “You had better not get me killed,” she murmured before she could stop herself.

He sighed. “Get in, Ophelia. The only thing to do with fear is to confront it. Every damn time.”

The man sounded like he knew what he was talking about, although sometimes running from fear was the smartest thing to do. Obviously. She accepted his hand and climbed up, settling into the surprisingly comfortable leather seat.

Without waiting for an invitation, he leaned inside, grasped the chest harness, and pulled it over her head, securing it tightly with the buckle at her waist, his thick hair brushing her arm, and his hand millimeters from her breast.

She blinked, her body instantly warming.

He slowly lifted his head, his eyes mere inches from hers. She stopped breathing. Again. Their gazes met, and it was a moment. One of those inexplicable, real, human connections that’s felt and not reasoned. She didn’t try to find a word to say because there wasn’t one. Awareness, the same one she shared, darkened his eyes.

The moment passed as quickly as it had landed. He stepped back and securely shut her door before striding around to climb into the pilot’s seat, making the entire craft hitch and fill with that spicy winter scent. Silently, he handed over headphones, which she quickly donned, not liking the sense of being unbalanced.

“Whose plane is this?” She spoke into the microphone of the headset.

He fiddled with a bunch of levers. “A guy named Trapper Matt owned the plane and died three years ago at the age of a hundred. He left all of his belongings to the town of Knife’s Edge, so I guess it’s the town’s. It’ll be put in storage for the winter as soon as our late winter begins, which might be tomorrow.”

Hopefully the town performed regular maintenance on the craft. “Who are you?”

“Brock Osprey. Temporary pilot today. ”She stiffened. “Osprey?”“Yep.” The plane instantly started rolling down the ice,hitching and wobbling.
That last name was not a good coincidence, by any means.

Her voice wavered, and she planted a hand against the door. “You’re one of Hank Osprey’s adopted kids.” She only had Brock’s name and the fact that he’d served as a Navy SEAL in her slim FBI file and hoped to have his military records soon.

“Yep.”

Just wonderful. “Hank’s murder is one of the cases I’m here to investigate.” The most important one, and her main reason for heading to the small town. Another chill clacked down her spine. Why had she left the gun in the pack?

Brock yanked the levers back, and the craft lifted unsteadily into the air. A gust of wind hit them, pushing them sideways.

Dark clouds rolled in from the east, visible from their vantage point off the ground. “At the moment, an old death is the least of your worries.” He yanked the stick, and the plane continued to bump through the air, climbing higher.

“Hank died about a year ago. That’s not an old death.”

Brock grunted. Again. “A year is an eon when you live in the middle of nowhere.” A gust of wind shoved them to the side.

“Maybe, we, well, should we wait until the storm passes?” she whispered, even her lips trembling.

Another wind gust slashed them, and he tightened his hold on the stick. “The storm never passes, sweetheart. Not in Knife’s Edge.”

She started to ask more questions when a large facility to the east caught her attention. A massive antenna field, satellite dishes, and grids of transmitters spread out from a sprawling concrete building and covered at least fifty acres. “What in the world is that place?”

“S.I.S,” he answered, spelling out the letters and almost sounding casual. “We call it SIS, and it’s just a governmental research facility. They study the ionosphere.” She turned to him again, nodding to keep him talking. He sighed but appeased her. “They only let the mail and supply plane that comes twice a month in the winter land on their runway—when it can get in. Sometimes it can take months with our weather. I’m surprised you haven’t heard the conspiracy theories about that place that run the gamut between manipulating the weather to mind control experiments. It’s all bunk. The facility just conducts research. So they say.”

She shifted to look out the window. “Can we fly closer?”

“No. Restricted airspace, except for their own supply plane.” He made another adjustment. The wind battered the small craft. “Restricted airspace in the Alaskan wilderness? I do love a

good puzzle.” She had to figure out this one.

“That isn’t a puzzle, and it’s not what you’re here to do,” he said mildly.

Interesting. Was that a warning? She switched topics to throw him off-balance. “Who do you think murdered Hank Osprey? He was your guardian, right?”

“Yes, and nobody murdered him. Nobody wanted Hank dead.” Brock’s tone remained calm, but tension showed in his firmer grip on the stick.

Oh, he definitely knew more than he let on. “Don’t you want to know for sure? I will find out what happened.” Whether Brock and his town liked it or not, she excelled at digging for the truth—and this marked her last chance to keep her job. She couldn’t give up.

Brock gave one of those grunts she couldn’t decipher. “That’s your choice.” His face might as well have been carved from the jagged rocks around them. “Hold on. We have to drop fast. It’s going to be a rough landing.”