Day 5 Late Afternoon

When did shefirst see him, based on his size? No. that's not what he's asking. Amelia studied the massive man in front of her but not with fear. Instead she noted a certain edge of excitement, a certain streak of attraction, neither of which she ever really expected to feel. She had felt it the first time her path had crossed his, both of them walking in the village, stopping her in her tracks. Yet he hadn't shared those feelings, just kept on going, and it had left her confused, disoriented, and struggling. She trashed herself about it for quite a while, calling herself a child needing to grow up, because stuff like that only happened in books.

And yet here she was, still looking at him, wondering what the hell was going on with her hormones. When she was drugged, her body didn't know this was happening. Yet now that she was slowly coming back out of the most acute pain, her body was taunting her, as if saying, Hey, wake up, wake the fuck up out of that stupor. Amelia got the message. It was clear and conscious. She wanted to yell at her hormones to tell Mountain to take notice because he was oblivious.

She shifted again to look over at Sydney, who, for all intents and purposes, appeared to be ignoring them. Amelia wasn't fooled. If she so much as coughed a single time, Sydney would be at Amelia's bedside in a heartbeat. Meanwhile Sydney had tuned them out, content to let them do their thing for the moment. Amelia's gaze shifted back to Mountain, who was waiting.

She frowned. "I saw you out there many times, but I didn't know who you were, and I didn't trust you," she replied, trying to answer whatever his question had been. "So, I made sure that I stayed out of your way."

He didn't seem to like that answer.

She continued. "I get it. You're probably used to being the one who has the skills to stay hidden, but, up here, Mother Nature equalizes a lot."

His face cracked into a surprising smile. "Good. I'm glad you had that advantage because, if it wasn't me, it was someone else." Then he took a moment to add, "And obviously both times you got shot, you couldn't escape them either time."

"One of them was really good," she noted. "A couple times I thought he was hunting me, stalking me in a way, but then he disappeared."

"Because he's dead," Mountain stated bluntly. "That was probably Eric, although I don't think he was your shooter. I am sure we have mentioned him to you. He was missing for a long while, then broke into the base, hell-bent on a second attack on Chrissy and Whalen, for some reason—maybe because Eric thought they had seen something. Chrissy had no choice but to shoot him to defend them all."

Amelia winced at that. "Great. Did you and Magnus discuss my theory at least?"

"We did, and as theories go, it's definitely possible," he admitted. When she looked at him in surprise, he shrugged. "I'm not saying that Chef is protecting someone, but, if he is, we could use a little more psychology on it than we have currently available."

"I'm sure you have lots of people on staff for that," she said.

He gave her a ghost of a smile. "And yet you've done pretty well, so far."

She shook her head. "I just understand people. Some of them,… as I am sure you would agree, are all kinds of nuts."

He laughed at that. "Yeah, that's a good description of people in general, but you seem to have a larger-than-passing knowledge on serial killers."

"Not really," she argued, as she hesitated, wondering how much to say and then realizing it would probably come out eventually anyway, what with these investigators digging into her background as well. "At one point in time, I dated one. Thankfully he didn't choose me as his next victim, and he was caught before our relationship went too far." She took a deep breath and added, "It definitely made me wary."

His eyebrows shot straight up, as he stared at her.

She shrugged. "I figured you would have found out sooner or later."

He smiled. "We might have heard about it eventually, but it's always nicer when people volunteer information. Then we don't feel that we have to pull teeth to get it from them, at least not all the time."

"What difference does it make?" she snapped, glaring at him, frustrated with herself for mentioning it. "The fact that I had the crappy judgment to go out with this guy shouldn't need to be brought up all the time and leave a negative mark on me for the rest of my life."

"No, of course not," he agreed. "Yet has this mention made your past or future harder?"

She gave him a flat look. "Hasn't made it all that much easier," she pointed out.

With a ghost of a smile, he nodded. "Still, your honesty is appreciated."

"And yet it doesn't make a damn bit of a difference. That's my ugly history and doesn't pertain to anybody else."

"Maybe not," he replied, "but you do have an innate understanding that a lot of people here would not."

"Only because I had to go to his court case, give evidence, plus did an awful lot of research myself," she explained. "I never wanted to end up in that situation again."

"Of course not," he stated, "and thankfully you survived. It seems to have potentially given you a sixth sense of sorts."

"Maybe, or maybe it's just paranoia," she muttered, not giving any quarter nor direction. "If you think about it, it's very easy to think that you know something, but it's just as easy to be wrong. I couldn't take the chance of being wrong again."

"At least it was a long time ago," he murmured, "and you're doing fine now. You've got quite a stellar name built up in your field. You have a lot of respect for the villagers, and they also respect you."

She gave a half laugh. "That's because my great-grandfather was related to several of them," she shared. "I mentioned earlier that I have cousins there, did I not?"

He nodded, and, with that last piece handed to him, it felt almost as if the tumblers fell into place in his head.

She nodded. "So, technically,… yes, I'm related to several of them," she said, now coherent and compliant, "but I really don't think you could call that a relationship or a family. My father used to come up on a regular basis and be with the villagers, and he's the one who taught me most of what I know about survival in this place. I just call it my community."

"I can see that."

"He's also the one who instilled the love of this area in me," she added, with a nod. "He sent me to university so I could study and understand the beauty of it." The tears collected in the back of her eyes, as she thought about it. "Definitely some times in my life have been much better than others, and those times up here with my great-grandfather, grandfather and my father were definitely some of the best."

"Anybody else in your family show any interest in the Arctic?" he asked.

With a ghost of a smile in his direction, she shook her head. "No, my sisters prefer not to acknowledge that blood in their lives," she shared. "For me, it's not the blood that matters. It's the people."

Mountain saw the fierceness that he liked so much in Amelia.

"I couldn't care less whether people like my heritage or not," she stated, with a cool look in his direction. "I can tell you that what they taught me was invaluable, and it has kept me alive on more than one occasion, when I've been doing research up here. It's also allowed me to stay out almost indefinitely, looking after myself, and that's how I managed to look after Teegan too," she related.

"Of course. You must have certain skills, and those types of skills are best taught by the elders," he noted. "So it was an easy assumption on our part. We just didn't know the details."

"The details are simple," she said. "I had family who taught me skills and lessons that I chose to learn and to learn well, not like a lot of people in this world who think it's more of a joke than anything,"

"That is understandable too."

"Yeah, it is. Once you need those skills, it isn't something you fool around with," she murmured. "When a need becomes one of survival, there isn't any doubt as to the viability of the information you've spent a lifetime learning."

"And, in your case, you were gifted with that information." He gave her a searching gaze. "That makes it even more valuable."

*

A gentle smilewhispered across her face, before she even had a chance to hold it back. Something was very comforting about him. She had expected some judgment from him, as she experienced from many others, but none appeared on his face. It was too early to tell, and she was no longer a good judge of men. Maybe she could judge humanity better, but, when it came to individual men themselves, she always questioned everything.

She looked around. "My heritage did cause a problem, when several of the other members at the university found out I had Inuit blood in my family. I certainly won't downplay how unpleasant that was to go through."

He slowly nodded his head. "I'm sorry about that. I don't imagine that would have been fun."

"No, it sure wasn't," she murmured. "Particularly when there was absolutely no need for it, but so much of the academic world is very dog-eat-dog, which is so sad because, again, there is no need for it. I'm here for the work, for the results. I'm not here for the glory. Lots of people don't believe that. They think it's not possible to want one but not the other, and I think that's sad for them. There is so much more to life than being out there, trying to backstab everyone on the climb to the top."

"I'm sorry you had to deal with that prejudice." He nodded. "I've experienced it a time or two in my world as well. My size generally causes other people to stay quiet, rather than pushing it too far," he shared, with a laugh.

With a wry look in his direction, she nodded. "You have that advantage. I didn't. And I'm female to boot, so that's another knock against me."

"Not a knock against you at all," he argued. "Honestly, you've done more out here than I think anybody else on this base could do."

"Except for one," she corrected, with a bitterness to her tone. Mountain raised one eyebrow. She nodded. "The man who shot me."

*

Mountain thought abouther words in the hours that followed. Amelia had been open and honest and had in no way cut back or minimized the effect of her heritage, even though she didn't physically show any signs of it. He'd taken a few hits on his own heritage over the years, but, as he'd explained to her, they were not hits that most people cared to push because of his size alone, and he was okay with using his size when it came to those things that he had no control over.

He had no time or energy for assholes who would judge or knock people for their heritage. There was too much else in this world to spend time on that actually mattered, and he chose not to waste time on those people. Absolutely nothing in her speech, her mannerisms, or her tone suggested that her words were anything but honest and truthful, and, for that, he was grateful. There was no denying the attraction building within him, and finding out they shared similar experiences related to heritage, plus a love of the world and its beauty, certainly didn't hurt either. Yet it was crappy timing, and right now his focus needed to be entirely on solving the rest of this mess going on around them.

As he stopped by the office Samson was using, Mountain poked his head in to see the new investigator standing in the middle of the room, an odd look on his face. Mountain quickly stepped in, closed the door, and announced his presence. "What are you thinking about?"

Startled, Samson turned and looked at him, then frowned, but remained silent.

Mountain frowned right back. "You'll have to share your thoughts sometime," he muttered.

"Will I?" Samson asked, with a note of amusement.

Mountain rolled his eyes, stared back at him, and replied, "Yeah, you will."

"I'm thinking about what Amelia said." Looking down at the notes Magnus had written and handed over to him, he continued, "If she's right, we could be looking for somebody who's potentially been doing this for a long time, someone who stopped permanently for whatever reason, or stopped temporarily and then was triggered to start again."

"It's the triggering to start again that's got me worried," Mountain declared, "because what would it take for that to happen?"

"You would have to look at what had stopped it in the first place," he pointed out. "I've touched base with a couple psychologists and several other specialists in the field, and generally what stops a serial killer can be a change in environment, such as incarceration, where they got caught for a different crime. Sometimes starting a family, having children, can completely change how a serial killer would view his hobby at that point in time. Any big change in life, getting a certain amount of recognition for something he did that's not connected to his hobby but provides that same high. It could be all kinds of things," Samson muttered. "The bottom line is that a serial killer is classed as somebody who's killed three or more people, and, of course, there's a special class for shooters who take out people in masses. However, for a serial killer in this case, we would be looking at somebody who had systematically, slowly murdered people throughout his active period."

Mountain absorbed that for a moment. "Yet we had fires here, plus the generator problems on base and at the scientists' camp, which may or may not be related. We had poisonings, but one was misguided love. We definitely had drug problems on this base. What I'm saying is that, we may well have one serial killer, but we also have others endangering our lives. So we have someone who could also methodically trigger other people to commit crimes, like some cult leader, and he would stay in the shadows.… Yet why? And why now?"

"Sometimes for no other reason than simply because they can. As Amelia mentioned, the military is a hell of a breeding ground for anybody looking for killing opportunities," Samson replied, with a shrug. "Not everybody is geared to kill just for the thrill of it. Some military leaders are absolutely terrified of the destruction they cause when they give orders, particularly controversial orders. Yet other leaders are absolutely enthralled with making decisions that represent life or death to other various people."

They discussed the possibilities for a few minutes, exchanging what they thought on the issues, and then, out of the blue, Samson added, "I'll need to talk to her myself."

Mountain nodded. "I want to be present."

His eyebrows shot up, as he looked back at him. "I want to see how she handles being questioned by somebody else, changes in mannerisms, things such as that," Samson explained.

Mountain nodded. "I have seen her reactions to me, but you could be the wild card."

"I'm fine with that," Samson stated, with a grunt.

"When do you want to do it?"

"Now would be good." Samson shrugged.

"You need to be aware that we spoke about her briefly dating a serial killer, and that is partly why she has so much knowledge and insight into them. Fearful of repeating the experience, yet wanting to understand, she did a lot of studying on the topic."

"You would have thought that might send her into that field, not up here dealing with the mountains and the winter glaciers," Samson noted. "That's a very specialized field in itself."

At that, Mountain explained about her father and great-grandfather. "I wonder if maybe she spent an awful lot of time up here in order to help her recover from dating a serial killer, then later after the deaths of her great-grandfather and her father."

Samson nodded. "That would make sense. She's been blessed to have that kind of training, that kind of help."

"That's what I told her," Mountain confirmed, with a smile. "I'm not sure she believed me, but I sensed relief that I didn't judge her for her Inuit background. She seems sensitive to that."

Samson laughed. "You're the last person to judge her for that or anything else. I'm sure you've got your own horror stories to share."

"I've certainly got a few, but they didn't last very long. People have to be half suicidal to take me on, particularly after insulting me."

Samson nodded and gave a light chuckle. "I can imagine that much. Let's go see what we can rustle up this time," he muttered.

"I've got some contacts looking into the history on various people here to see how much might have come up in background checks that was common or shared among everyone here. We do have chaos going on, with multiple avenues to cause problems or to obscure the main problem. However, what if the killings alone are just by one person?"

"I suspect that it is just one person," Samson declared. "While we have one person in custody, he won't talk, and he hasn't given me any idea as to why he would poison Teegan. Still, that's got to be considered. If Chef's protecting somebody, then he probably knows who the serial killer is. That's what bothers me."

"Not that I think Chef is our serial killer, yet a serial killer would do the same thing—not talk, not explain—wouldn't he?" Mountain asked.

"Maybe, maybe not. Again I've got the shrinks on that too." Samson picked up a notepad, walked to the door, and looked over at Mountain. "Are you coming?"

"Oh, I'm coming," he said, with a smile, "if for no other reason than to see how she reacts."

"You seem to be expecting some reaction," Samson pointed out. "I'm not sure that's being fair to her."

"There is no fair right now," Mountain stated. "She seems to be telling the truth. And I, just like her, don't trust that easily."

"Did you date a serial killer too?" Samson asked, with a smirk.

"Nope, but, like her, I also know what people are capable of."

Samson gave him a hard look and nodded. "Don't we all.… Don't we all." And, with that, the two men walked out and headed to the medical clinic.