The Bone Seeker Read Online Free Page A

‘I’ve been trying to forget.’ They’d been dumped out on the sea ice and left to die and Derek would have done just that if Edie hadn’t built a shelter and kept him alive until help came. He owed her one.
    â€˜Look,’ he sighed. ‘I know why you’ve come.’ He stepped down from the ladder and rested his hands on his hips. The sun shining on his face lent him a ghostly air. ‘You had some dream and now you want me to send out an SAR. Do have any idea how expensive a search and rescue is? Or how hard it is to bring this detachment in on budget?’
    He wiped his hands on a rag and picked up a can of wood preserver. ‘This can, that ladder, the brush I’m about to use. All that comes straight out of my own pocket.’
    It was a lot to ask, she knew. Budgets, reports, justifying spending decisions to HQ, but none of that meant anything when someone’s child was missing.
    â€˜I just want to find her.’
    He pressed his lips together. She could see he was softening. ‘Look, it’s not that I don’t trust your instincts or respect your concern. It’s your motivation I worry about,’ Derek went on. She could see impatience in his eyes. ‘You can’t turn back time. You can’t mend people, Edie.’
    He’d seen what she was only just beginning to realize was there. This wasn’t only about Martha. It was about her stepson, Joe. Aboutthe knots she’d tied herself in wondering if Joe would still be alive today if she’d acted more decisively after he had gone missing. About living with the guilt, the endless nagging doubt. She didn’t want anyone else to have to go through that. Not ever.
    â€˜What if we don’t look and it turns out that something bad has happened to her?’ she said. She tried to put herself inside his head. ‘What about your credibility in the community?’
    â€˜Ha!’ His laugh was as bitter as old coffee. ‘I represent
qalunaat
law, remember? In the eyes of the Kuujuamiut I have no credibility. I’m irredeemable. A scumbag.’ He met her gaze for a moment then rolled his eyes. ‘OK, OK. If the girl doesn’t show up in the next hour we’ll fly.’ He held up a hand. ‘But you’re not coming. I don’t want the compliance folk on my back.’
    She stood her ground. He pulled off his work gloves
    â€˜Holy walrus, Edie.’ He was half exasperated, half amused. ‘All right, you can come in the plane, but not in any official capacity. Now, if you wanna make yourself useful, go ask Markoosie to put a message out on this evening’s radio show. He’s the nearest we’ve got to a proper shaman in this town. The way that show works, it’s kind of like the old shamanic drums and song duels. Come back here after. We’ll ride to the airstrip together.’ He leaned in and trained a steady eye on her. ‘And listen, this makes us evens. In fact, if anything, you owe me one.’
    â€˜I’ll try and remember that,’ she said.
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    Derek spoke briefly to Pol, his pilot, to tell him to prep the plane, then courtesy-called Colonel Al Klinsman, the officer in charge at Camp Nanook, to inform him about the SAR and let him have Martha Salliaq’s description just in case someone at the camp was hiding her. After that he fixed some tea in a vacuum flask so they’d have something to keep them warm when they were in the air. As he was walking back into the office, the door opened and Edie’s face appeared, those black eyes of hers almost frighteningly intense.
    â€˜Everything sorted with Markoosie?’
    She nodded.
    â€˜OK, then, let’s go.’
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    Pol took the Twin Otter up over the hills just west of the settlement and turned east along the shoreline, coming inland over the bird cliffs. The plane rose over blustering