Chapter 15
“What happened in Denver?”
Ethan kept his voice low.
Outside the ranger station, snow drifted over Sophie’s torn red coat.
Caleb remained somewhere above them on the roof.
Rachel did not answer.
Sophie did.
“She left me.”
Ethan looked at his daughter.
Rachel whispered, “Sophie, don’t.”
Sophie stepped closer to her father.
“At the mall.”
Ethan remembered.
Three months earlier, Rachel had taken Sophie shopping in Denver. He had received a frantic phone call around six in the evening.
Sophie was missing.
Security searched two floors of the shopping center for nineteen minutes before finding her near a parking garage elevator, crying beside a vending machine.
Rachel told Ethan that Sophie had wandered away while Rachel paid for clothes.
Sophie insisted she had been told to wait by the elevators.
Ethan had assumed there had been a misunderstanding.
He had even given Sophie a lecture about never leaving an adult in a crowded place.
The memory landed differently now.
“You told me you wandered off,” Ethan said.
Sophie’s face crumpled.
“No. Rachel told me to wait.”
Rachel shook her head.
“That isn’t what happened.”
Sophie raised her voice.
“You went downstairs without me.”
“I thought you were behind me.”
“No!”
Caleb laughed from above.
“Tell him the fun part, kid.”
Ethan stared at Rachel.
“What fun part?”
Sophie wiped tears from her cheeks.
“I saw her.”
“Where?”
“In the parking lot.”
Rachel closed her eyes.
Sophie continued.
“I went outside because I thought Rachel went to the car. I saw her sitting in it.”
Ethan felt his stomach tighten.
“What was she doing?”
“Watching the doors.”
Rachel shook her head again.
“No.”
“She saw me.”
“Sophie—”
“She saw me and didn’t come get me.”
Ethan looked at his wife.
“Is that true?”
Rachel’s silence was answer enough.
He remembered how shaken she had seemed that evening.
How she had cried in his arms.
How she said Sophie’s wandering was getting worse.
How she had suggested maybe Sophie should spend more time with Ethan’s mother, Helen, because Rachel was afraid she could not keep her safe.
Ethan had defended his daughter.
Rachel had backed down.
At least he thought she had.
Now he saw a pattern.
“At Grandma’s,” he said.
Sophie nodded before he finished.
“The basement door.”
Another memory.
Sophie had been found outside Helen’s house one rainy afternoon in October.
Rachel said Sophie must have gone through the basement and forgotten to close the door.
Sophie claimed somebody locked it behind her.
Ethan had believed it was an accident.
Three times.
Three incidents.
Three opportunities to make Sophie appear reckless.
Ethan stared at Rachel.
“You were building a story.”
Rachel began to cry.
“What story?” Sophie asked.
Ethan wished she had not heard.
Rachel whispered, “I was trying to get help.”
“For who?”
“For us.”
“There is no us right now.”
She flinched.
Ethan continued.
“You wanted me to believe Sophie wandered away.”
“I wanted you to understand that things weren’t working.”
“Things?”
Rachel pointed helplessly toward Sophie.
“She hated me.”
“She is seven.”
“She never gave me a chance.”
Sophie stared at her.
“I did.”
Rachel looked at the child.
“You fought me on everything.”
“Because you’re mean when Dad leaves.”
The room went still.
Ethan looked at Sophie.
“What does that mean?”
Rachel said, “She’s trying to—”
“Don’t.”
His voice stopped her.
He crouched beside Sophie.
“Tell me.”
Sophie looked scared.
“When you’re home, she’s nice.”
Ethan’s chest hurt.
“When I’m not?”
“She says I make you tired.”
Rachel covered her face.
“She says you would be happier if it was only you and her.”
“Sophie.”
Rachel’s voice was pleading now.
Sophie kept going.
“She said Grandma wants me anyway.”
Ethan closed his eyes.
His mother adored Sophie.
Rachel knew that too.
A perfect destination if she wanted Sophie out of their home without appearing cruel.
Ethan had spent months wondering why Sophie had become more anxious whenever he left for work.
She called more often.
Asked what time he would return.
Sometimes cried when he traveled overnight.
He had blamed grief.
He had blamed himself.
He had even asked Rachel whether he was somehow making Sophie too dependent on him.
Rachel had told him he was doing his best.
Then, apparently, she turned around and fed Sophie’s fear.
Ethan stood.
“You wanted me to send her to my mother.”
Rachel looked down.
“Yes.”
Sophie’s face broke.
Ethan immediately put an arm around her.
“Not happening.”
Rachel looked up.
“I never wanted her dead.”
“That is an unbelievably low bar.”
“I wanted space.”
“You wanted my child removed from her home.”
“I thought temporarily.”
“You staged dangerous incidents to make her look unstable.”
“I didn’t think they were dangerous.”
“Today there was a wolf.”
“I didn’t know Caleb would bring it close!”
“I didn’t bring the wolf,” Caleb called through the chimney.
Rachel screamed upward.
“You baited it!”
“Wolves go where they want.”
Ethan looked at the roof.
“Why are you doing this?”
Caleb was silent for a moment.
Then his voice returned.
“Because my sister thinks she can erase people.”
Rachel stared upward.
“She erased me when I went away. New last name. New city. New job. New husband. Nice little family.”
“You threatened me for money,” Rachel shouted.
“I asked you to pay your share.”
“Your share of what?” Ethan demanded.
“Twenty-five years of consequences.”
Ethan turned toward the window.
“You stalked a child.”
“I watched a family.”
“You baited wolves.”
“I fed wildlife.”
“You cut the cabin power and propane.”
Caleb laughed.
“Okay. That part was me.”
Rachel grabbed Ethan’s sleeve.
“He wants us frightened. That’s what he does.”
Ethan pulled away.
“And what do you do?”
She had no answer.
A smell reached him.
Smoke.
Not fireplace smoke.
Wood smoke.
Close.
Ethan looked toward the door.
A thin gray line curled beneath it.
“He’s setting the porch on fire.”
Rachel jumped from the chair.
“Caleb!”
No answer.
Ethan ran to the emergency cabinet.
A small extinguisher hung inside.
He grabbed it.
The door was already warm near the bottom.
The ranger station was old, dry timber.
If Caleb had piled fuel against the porch, they had minutes.
Maybe less.
Ethan checked the windows.
The storm shutters locked from inside, but snow was packed high outside.
He could force one open.
It might put them directly in Caleb’s line of fire.
The satellite communicator vibrated again.
DEPUTY 22 MINUTES OUT. STAY SHELTERED IF SAFE.
Ethan almost laughed.
They did not have twenty-two minutes.
“Is there another exit?” he asked Rachel.
She looked around.
“I don’t remember.”
“You came here as a kid.”
“That was twenty years ago.”
Sophie pointed at the floor.
“What’s that?”
A small iron ring sat flush with the wooden boards beneath an old rug.
Ethan yanked the rug aside.
A square outline appeared.
Trapdoor.
He pulled.
It resisted.
Rachel joined him.
Together they lifted it.
Cold air rushed up from darkness.
A narrow ladder descended beneath the station.
“Root cellar?” Rachel asked.
“Doesn’t matter.”
Ethan shined the flashlight down.
Stone walls.
Packed dirt floor.
And, at the far end, what looked like a low tunnel.
Old ranger stations sometimes had crawlspaces for plumbing and storm storage.
Maybe there was another exit.
“Sophie first.”
She stared into the darkness.
“No.”
“I’m right behind you.”
Smoke thickened near the ceiling.
The front door crackled.
“Sophie.”
She climbed.
Ethan followed.
Rachel came last and pulled the trapdoor down above them.
Darkness swallowed the cellar.
Ethan switched on the flashlight.
The tunnel was barely four feet high.
They crawled.
Behind them, something crashed upstairs.
The ranger station door giving way.
Sophie moved faster.
The tunnel turned left beneath the rock shelf.
Then ended at a wooden panel.
Ethan pushed.
Snow collapsed inward.
Daylight appeared.
They crawled out thirty yards behind the station beneath a cluster of spruce trees.
Flames licked along the front porch.
Caleb stood near the opposite side, staring at the door.
He thought they were still inside.
Ethan motioned Rachel and Sophie downhill.
Quiet.
Slow.
They moved.
For thirty seconds, it worked.
Then Sophie stepped on a buried branch.
Crack.
Caleb turned.
“There you are.”
Ethan shouted, “RUN!”
They ran downhill.
A gunshot cracked behind them.
Then another.
Rachel screamed.
Ethan turned.
She fell into the snow.
“Rachel!”
He ran back.
Blood marked the sleeve of her sweater.
“I’m okay,” she gasped. “It grazed me.”
Sophie stood frozen ten yards downhill.
“Sophie, keep moving!”
The child did not move.
She was staring past him.
Ethan followed her gaze.
The huge gray wolf stood between the trees.
Not charging.
Watching.
A second wolf appeared behind it.
Then a third.
The bait scent.
The blood.
The gunshots.
Everything Caleb had brought into their world was gathering around them.
Caleb emerged from above, rifle raised.
Then he saw the wolves.
For the first time, his smile disappeared.
One of the animals growled.
Caleb stepped backward.
Ethan grabbed Rachel’s good arm.
“Move.”
They descended.
Caleb shouted at the wolves.
One lunged forward several feet—not attacking, but warning.
Caleb fired into the snow.
The pack scattered.
The sound echoed through the valley.
And then, far below, Ethan heard something else.
A siren.
The sheriff.
Relief surged through him.
“Sophie!”
No answer.
Ethan looked downhill.
The place where she had been standing was empty.
“Sophie?”
Rachel turned in panic.
“SOPHIE!”
Ethan ran toward the trees.
Small boot prints crossed the snow.
May you like
Then disappeared into the whiteout.
His daughter was gone.
