“Why are you telling me all this, Ms. Choknok?  I had heard–“  He hesitated.

She stood up and brushed off the seat of her pants.  “You had heard that Kelly McCormick was my blue ticket out of Newenham.”

“Well, yes.”

She offered him a chilly smile.  “He was.  My parents are so scared I’m going to marry him that they offered to send me away to the University of Washington.”

Out of curiosity, Liam asked, “Where were they going to send you?”

“At first, nowhere, they didn’t want me leaving home.  Then, when I insisted on going to college, they decided on the University of Alaska.”  The chilly smile broadened, just a little.  “Kelly McCormick’s alma mater, or would have been, if he hadn’t dropped out last year.  He told my folks he still had friends there, that they’d look after me.”

Not just intelligent, Liam thought, positively Machiavellian.  “Well, I wish you the very best of luck, Ms. Choknok.”  Not that it looked like she needed any, being the kind to make her own.  On impulse, he said, “What are you planning on studying?”

Her expression didn’t change.  “Psychology.”

“Of course you are,” Liam agreed cordially.

---

Excerpt from the first Liam Campbell novel, Fire and Ice. The fifth, Spoils of the Dead, publishes on February 6, 2021. Order your signed hardcover here.

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