Sundown on Top of the World: A Hunter Rayne Highway Mystery Read Online Free Page B

California?”
    “Heading north this time. Through B.C. and up the Alaska highway, then across the Yukon into Alaska.”
    The old man raised his eyebrows above the rims of his glasses. Hunter noticed a fingerprint smudge on one lens. “That’ll be quite the trip. You used to live there, didn’t you?”
    “Back in the seventies. It was a wild place then, with wild people. Be interesting to see how it’s changed.”
    The old man nodded thoughtfully. “You were one of the wild ones? You must’ve changed since then yourself. I’m sure it will look different through older and wiser eyes.”
    “Older, for sure. But wiser?” Hunter smiled at his landlord, then turned and walked to his car.  He threw his duffle bag on the back seat.
    “Have a safe trip,” said the landlord, waving from the doorway.
    Hunter thought about what Gord had said as he headed east on the Upper Levels highway. The midday traffic was light, scattered with summer travelers in motor homes and pickup trucks with campers. Was he so different now, from the idealistic young police constable who’d moved to the Yukon? There he’d met the girl who would become his wife. He’d left the Yukon, married, raised two daughters – although his ex-wife Christine would dispute how much he’d contributed to their raising – worked in investigations with the RCMP and become a seasoned homicide investigator, been through a painful divorce and lost his best friend to suicide. Yes, he had to be different now.
    The traffic bottlenecked briefly at the Second Narrows Bridge, and as he inched forward, it occurred to him that the idealistic young police constable he used to be would never have believed that he would one day walk away from his dream career in law enforcement to become a long haul trucker. It was the solitude of the job that had appealed to him, the solitude and simplicity of life on the road, something that his wounded psyche had craved then, when he resigned from the force, and still needed now, some five years later.
    A young girl in a VW Cabriolet cut him off, then turned and smiled sheepishly at him when traffic brought them both to an immediate stop. She had a bouncy blond pony tail, and reminded him of his youngest daughter, Lesley, who hoped to one day join the RCMP herself. He truly wished she wouldn’t – it was a hard road for a young man to travel, and no doubt even harder for a girl – but at the same time, he was proud of her choice, and it touched him deeply that she wanted to follow in his footsteps.
    He reminded himself to call and let her and her sister know he would be away again, for a couple of weeks at least. Summer in the north. Everyone should experience it at least once in their life. Would Lesley be free to go with him? Would it be wise to even ask her? There was always the risk that she would fall in love with the North and want to stay, like other young girls with adventurous spirits had done before her.
    Unbidden, he saw in his mind’s eye the image of just such a young woman he’d known briefly during his first year in Whitehorse. He saw her waving to him with a cheerful smile from behind the wheel of a 1964 Volkswagen bug, strands of her dark hair blowing around her face. The bug was a dull white, with hand-painted pink and yellow daisies on each side. The memory was tinged with grief, and accompanied by a sense of unfinished business. She had disappeared – presumed dead, although there was no way to know for sure. He had never wanted to accept that such a vibrant spirit had been extinguished, so he had looked for her as long as he was in the North, and even after.
    He decided not to call his daughters until he was on the road.
     
     
    “You cannot just quit a job because it’s boring to you, mon cher. You have two young children. They need clothing and shoes, and they want things like their friends have. You promised we would save up to buy a house – our own house. I don’t want to live every month worrying