Page 60 of Untamed Coast

“If you reject, regrettably”—Thomas put his hand on top of his case—“I’ll be obliged to handle matters with you just as I did with your uncooperative lawyer.”

She held the pen over the signature line on the bill of sale.

Fast enough to fight him now?

Anya signed.

No point risking it all. Smarter to play along.

“It’s been a pleasure doing business with you, Miss Baron.” Thomas slipped the papers into his attaché. “My office will handle the paperwork upon my safe return to St. Louis, and you should receive a cashier’s check shortly after. I assume our communication ends here.”

I certainly hope so.

“It would be regrettable for both of us if you fail to honor our agreement.” Thomas stood and moved toward the door. “I’ll see myself out. Good day, Miss Baron.”

See yourself out? It’s a fucking boat. Walk two steps and you’re out the door.

As the door closed, Anya let out a sigh of relief. When that check arrived, she would be rich. She didn’t quite know what to make of that. It seemed like Chilton might have done all right by her after all—even if it was his last act.

What had made Thomas so nervous that he had flown all the way to Alaska to murder Chilton and to pay her such an extraordinary sum for—her island fishing cabin, of all things? And to protect…what? What secret was he hiding?

Why had Thomas murdered Chilton? It obviously wasn’t self-defense.

What would she do with this amount of money? She could see buying more fishing boats, and maybe a packer? She might want to move to Sitka and set herself up here? She’d never really contemplated being wealthy before.

Anya climbed the ladder to the bridge to watch Thomas leave.

He turned from the finger onto the main dock as two uniformed policemen started down the ramp from the parking lot.

They walked in slow motion as the distance between them and Thomas closed.

Anya’s pulse pounded in her ears.

Thomas gave a slight, polite nod as he passed the officers. He then turned briefly back toward Lady Melinda before disappearing at the top of the ramp.

Chapter 46

.-. . ... . .- .-. -.-. ....

Alaska State Library—Juneau, AK

2017—Marconi Franco

Dit Dit Dah Dah Dah…Dit Dit Dah—Marco’s mind translated the messages he was reading into Morse code and played them on repeat in his head like earworms. The rhythm wove a silent solo on top of Miles Davis’s Sketches of Spain in his earbuds as he sat at a table in the basement archive room of the historical museum.

He was alone except for the clerk who sat at the checkout window, reading a book.

Marco visualized Joe keying away on a pre-war code setup, listening to some jazz instrumental of his own on an old phonograph.

Marco tugged at the loose white cloth gloves the museum docent had provided him for handling the antique journals and opened the next book from the box. Each journal was the same soft-bound moleskine as the ones he’d found in the eagle’s nest, and written in the same handwriting—neat, meticulous, and curly.

These men’s hearts and souls were laid bare here, eighty years later, in their words and secrets passed back and forth with families and friends. Their betrayal by the mining company was evident in the desperation of their tone—the subtext of their brief exchanges with loved ones.

Marco had been reading the archived Radioville station logs for four hours, and he felt like he was inhabiting the brain of Joe Baxter. Men had come to Alaska in pursuit of a dream, or to escape the reality of their lives. Men desperate to catch a break from economic ruin, men looking for a remote place to escape troubles with the law or family stresses, men clinging to a dream of a better life—all were ground down and then spit out without a care by the relentless machinery of the mining companies. They had come to the Alaska Territory with dreams of riches and instead they were worked to the bone, lived in squalor, and were paid in promises and meager wages in company scrip—which they could use only to buy whatever overpriced supplies were available at the company-owned mercantile. Even the modest earnings from their hard labor went right back to the mining company.

A young man wearing a gray polo shirt and khakis had entered behind him and was walking around the room texting on his phone.

Marco nodded.