Better safe than sorry, she thinks.īut even in a town of five hundred inhabitants, sudden death can strike. She cannot imagine any way that her abductor could possibly find her in a town that’s only reachable via plane or ferry and where all passengers are logged in on arrival, but she still locks the door to her room at the Benedict House, both when she’s inside it and when she leaves. Beth uses burner phones to call the first two and calls them only when necessary. One is her mother one is Detective Majors, who is still searching for Beth’s attacker and the third is the town’s police chief, nicknamed Gril, who was told about the reason behind Beth’s arrival in Benedict by Detective Majors. Only three people know who Beth is or the reason she is in Benedict. Take no chances would appear to be Viola’s motto. The three parolees take turns cooking, and although none has been convicted of a violent crime, Viola’s rule is that the woman whose turn it is to cook the meals on a particular day has to taste the food in front of the others before she serves it. Since there are no realistic options for other housing, Beth decides to stay there in spite of its unusual inhabitants: Viola, the no-nonsense owner and the parolees–Willa, Loretta, and Trinity, all shoplifters. Actually, as she finds out when she arrives, it’s a halfway house for women on parole. Or so she fervently hopes.īeth has booked a room via the Internet at Benedict House, which she assumed from her online search was a hotel housed in a former Russian Orthodox Church. It’s small and remote, just what she’s looking for, and thus a place where the man who kidnapped and held her prisoner for three days before she managed to escape could never find her. Beth Rivers, known to the readers of her books as Elizabeth Fairchild, has fled to Benedict, Alaska from her home in Missouri. The beauty of Alaska takes pride of place in this first in a series, but the fascinating protagonist is a close second.

Thin ice book paige shelton