Vy had a strong jaw and Midwest girl-next-door features. Her impossibly straight blond hair hung loose just above her chin in a pageboy cut. Anika almost suspected she had pompoms in a closet somewhere, and that until the recent cut, her hair was kept back in a ponytail.
There was a short, bubbly cheerfulness to her that seemed at odds to the crisp Armani suit and executive look she had right now. And it also seemed at odds with the fact that Violet was the biggest drug dealer in Arctic Bay.
10
The Belladonna, all real fruit juice and rich, expensive rum, settled over Anika like a faint haze. She grabbed Vy by the crook of her arm and guided her to a couch in a niche dominated by tiny palm trees in large plastic tubs.
So Vy had already scanned the news. She rubbed Anika’s shoulder, concern in her eyes. “I’m glad you’re okay. Some of us were worried about you. They’re saying the navy hunted the bastards down, right?”
Here in the niche, in the humid air, silenced from the outer party, Anika relaxed.
“They had me fly out to take a look. The Americans do have the people who fired at us.”
Vy grinned. “U.S.A. for the motherfucking win!” Vy was from somewhere in the southern United States. Anika had heard the accent in her voice the first time they’d met, when Vy had been drunk. Her slurring had strange cadences to it that weren’t there when she was sober and alert.
“But there’s something that doesn’t make sense,” Anika said. “They said these guys were running drugs.”
“Really? What kind?”
Anika leaned forward and buried her face in her hands, frustrated. “Shit, I didn’t think to ask.”
“Well, they’re not moving weed, not by ship. Anywhere in the Canadian Polar Circle, it’s all grown locally. Look at me: I have a license to sell. Pay taxes. I mean, you can think of me as the CEO of a very lucrative series of farms and pharmacies here in North Baffin. No sense in shipping it when you can grow it. The harder stuff, that usually comes smuggled up from the States, via the Midwest. That’s how I got my start, actually.”
“What gets shipped, then?”
Vy frowned. “Not much. Counterfeit pharmaceuticals, sometimes? Opiates from Afghanistan. But they usually ship them with regular shipments. Stick a container in the middle of a crapload of other containers. Smuggling via anonymity. It’s pretty awesome at getting your stuff where it needs to be.”
“So this chartered drug boat stuff, it’s bullshit.”
“I don’t know for sure. But my guess is: yes, it’s bullshit. I mean, I’m not hearing about it. It’s ridiculous, risky, expensive, and totally pointless. Particularly now that the UNPG has such a strong presence.”
Anika finished up the Belladonna and set it on the small table catercorner to the couch. “Okay. Thank you. I guess … I owe you? I’m not good at this sort of thing.” She stood up.
Vy sprang up next to her. “You’re not going to stay, are you?” She sounded disappointed.
Anika looked over at her. “I can’t.”
Vy’s eyes flicked around, and then she smiled ruefully. “You look determined. I won’t press it.” Then she leaned over, grabbed Anika’s hand and kissed the back of it. Anika closed her eyes for a second. “Well, I’d tell you that you know where to find me but it’s been two months since I last said that and you came to visit. Take my card.”
She slipped a piece of actual cardboard with contact information printed on it into one of the pockets of Anika’s jacket. The action reminded Anika of when Vy had slipped her the pass that let her into The Greenhouse.
“Vy. I can’t take your card. It would cause me trouble.”
“Sweetie, you’re out here asking me about how drugs are smuggled. You’re
Anika whipped the bike out of town, passing cars tooling their way along too slowly for her. She had a two- thirds charge still left in the batteries. That was plenty to allow her to race back home.
She’d gotten what she’d suspected: proof that things didn’t add up right. But did she have to come all the way out to Arctic Bay?
No. She had to answer that honestly to herself. She’d driven down to see Vy as much as anything. After everything she’d been through, she’d wanted to get back to Vy. To see if she was still at The Greenhouse. To see if she was still … interested in her?
Anika had first come down to The Greenhouse several months ago in a van full of pilots looking to blow off steam. Vy had tracked her down, picking her off from the pack.
There’d been something there. A sparkle in the smile. A knowing glance between them.
But that’s as far as it had gone. Because Anika couldn’t date a dealer. She wasn’t going to risk her pilot’s license.
Not that other flyboys weren’t doing similar things, or worse. But Anika knew it would come down heavier on her if her higher-ups found her involved with a dealer. That’s just how it was. Women didn’t get the same latitude. While boys would be boys,
And she wasn’t giving up a lifetime’s dream. Not on a fling. Not after everything she’d been through.
Yet it still hurt to make that decision, to turn away from a path.
There was a car behind her. The lights grew brighter as it pushed closer.
The bike had slipped down to half the speed limit as it groaned up the hillside. Anika moved aside to let the car pass. But as the headlights almost blinded her, she sensed, like a rat about to be hit by a striking snake, that the car was veering off to hit her instead of passing by.
At the last second before it struck, Anika whipped the bike left, crossing the centerline as the car clipped her instead of running her down.
The bulk of the vehicle rushed past, buffeting her and slamming into her leg. The mirror smacked into the small of her back and a wheel caught the back of her tire.
She wobbled, fighting to control the bike, then let it slide as gracefully as she could manage out from underneath her.
Anika hit the road on her left thigh, the bike now sideways and skidding on the asphalt with her. Sparks flew, metal screamed and groaned, but due to her low speed, the slide was manageable.
The bike spun off the road into the shoulder and up the hill, catapulting and smacking into a boulder.
Anika slid to a stop, bouncing into scree and dirt, cursing half-remembered childhood Igbo and Hausa phrases, and then finally English again as she realized she’d scraped to a stop.
Her leathers were ruined. A patch on the left thigh had come clean off; the skin underneath was ripped and shredded. Her left palm ached; she might have sprained the wrist, she thought. But after a second of flexing, she decided it was just badly bruised.
Now she was angry, not scared. She ripped her helmet off and looked at the car. It was a BMW, with tinted windows, that skidded to a stop down the highway.
“What the hell do you think you are doing?” she shouted.
The driver got out. A muscular, tall, dark-haired man in a gray suit. He had a gun, which he raised over the roof of the car and pointed at her.
Anika bolted for the large rocks and scree, using them as a cover.
Three puffs of dirt and cracked rock exploded from the ground around her, near misses, as she zigged her way deeper into the natural maze of large rocks.
She was out here, very alone. And with no sidearm of her own.
That very large guy in the cheap suit was going to hunt her down. She was sure of that. She had a limp, she was tired, and he had the gun.
Anika kept moving, her mind racing, as she scrambled over loose rock and raced for bigger boulders to use as
