Chapter 6
Ethan forgot Caleb.
Forgot Rachel’s bleeding arm.
Forgot the sheriff’s siren.
There was only the line of small boot prints disappearing through the trees.
“Sophie!”
He ran after them.
Snow stung his eyes.
The wind had strengthened, pushing loose powder across the hillside and erasing tracks almost as soon as they formed.
Behind him, Rachel shouted his name.
He did not stop.
“SOPHIE!”
A faint voice answered.
“Dad!”
Left.
Downhill.
Ethan changed direction.
He found one print near a fallen log.
Then another.
A flash of blue appeared between trees.
Sophie’s coat.
He pushed through branches.
She stood beside an old stone wall, crying.
Ethan reached her and dropped to his knees.
“Why did you run?”
She threw her arms around him.
“The gun.”
“I know.”
“I thought he was shooting me.”
“I know. I’ve got you.”
He held her so tightly she complained.
“Dad, I can’t breathe.”
“Sorry.”
He loosened his grip but did not let go.
Rachel stumbled into view a moment later.
Relief washed over her face.
“Oh, thank God.”
She approached.
Sophie hid behind Ethan.
Rachel stopped.
The reaction hurt her.
Ethan could see it.
He could not fix it.
A siren grew louder below.
Then an engine.
“Stay here,” Ethan said.
He pulled the orange emergency whistle from the satellite kit and blew three times.
A voice answered through the trees.
“SHERIFF’S OFFICE!”
Ethan nearly collapsed with relief.
“OVER HERE!”
Two deputies appeared five minutes later on snowmobiles.
The first, Deputy Aaron Pike, was broad and red-bearded. The second, Deputy Maya Chen, carried a rifle and scanned the trees constantly.
Ethan gave them the fastest version he could.
Armed man.
Caleb Voss.
Rifle.
Ranger station burning.
Child threatened.
Rachel wounded.
Possible wolves baited nearby.
Pike radioed for fire response and medical support.
Chen examined Rachel’s arm.
“The bullet grazed you. You need stitches, but you’re lucky.”
Rachel laughed shakily.
“I don’t feel lucky.”
Ethan said nothing.
Deputy Pike looked at him.
“Your satellite message said the suspect is related to your wife?”
“Yes.”
Rachel closed her eyes.
Pike turned to her.
“Ma’am, did you invite Caleb Voss to this location?”
Rachel hesitated.
Ethan stared at her.
She whispered, “Yes.”
The deputy’s expression changed.
“Why?”
“To meet him.”
“About what?”
“Blackmail.”
Pike looked between them.
“This conversation needs to happen somewhere safer.”
He pointed downhill.
“Our vehicles are about a quarter mile away. Road grader opened the east access far enough for us to get close.”
Chen handed Rachel a bandage.
“Can you walk?”
“Yes.”
They started down.
Ethan kept Sophie beside him.
Deputy Chen moved ahead, rifle ready.
Pike stayed behind them.
They had traveled maybe two hundred yards when a radio transmission crackled from Pike’s shoulder.
“Unit Four, be advised, structure visible. Active flames. Possible movement west side.”
Pike grabbed the radio.
“Do not approach alone. Suspect armed with hunting rifle.”
Static.
Then another voice.
“Copy.”
Sophie tugged Ethan’s hand.
“Dad?”
“What?”
“Rachel is gone.”
Ethan stopped.
He turned.
Rachel was no longer behind them.
Pike swore.
“She was right here.”
Ethan looked at the trees.
“Rachel!”
No answer.
Deputy Pike raised his radio.
Then Sophie pointed.
“There.”
A line of blood drops led away from the path.
Rachel’s injured arm.
Ethan stared.
She had deliberately left them.
“Why?” Chen asked.
Ethan thought of the flash drive.
The red coat.
Caleb.
“She went back.”
Pike shook his head.
“Not our problem right now. We get the child to safety.”
Ethan agreed.
Every part of him wanted answers, but Sophie came first.
They reached the access road.
Two sheriff SUVs waited behind a snowplow.
A paramedic truck had just arrived.
Sophie was wrapped in a thermal blanket and placed inside the heated ambulance.
Ethan climbed in beside her.
Deputy Chen stayed with them.
Pike and two other deputies headed uphill to search for Caleb and Rachel.
For the first time in hours, Sophie was warm, seated, and surrounded by adults whose job was to protect her.
Ethan expected relief.
Instead, he felt nauseated.
He had trusted Rachel.
That thought kept returning.
Not abstractly.
Specifically.
He had trusted her to pick Sophie up from school.
To stay with Sophie when he worked late.
To make dinner.
To take her to dance class.
To be in the house when Sophie slept.
Every ordinary act of trust now looked dangerous in retrospect.
Sophie leaned against him.
“Are you mad at me?”
Ethan stared.
“What?”
“For running.”
“No.”
“Rachel said you get mad when I make things harder.”
His throat tightened.
“Sophie, look at me.”
She did.
“You are not responsible for making adults’ lives easy.”
She watched him carefully.
“You’re seven. You’re allowed to need things. You’re allowed to be scared. You’re allowed to tell me when somebody does something wrong.”
“Even if you love them?”
The question hurt.
“Especially then.”
She nodded slowly.
Deputy Chen looked away to give them privacy.
Sophie whispered, “I tried to tell you before.”
Ethan closed his eyes.
“I know.”
“At Grandma’s.”
“I know.”
“You said the door probably stuck.”
“I know.”
“I wasn’t lying.”
He pulled her close.
“I know that now. And I’m sorry I didn’t understand sooner.”
She rested her cheek against his chest.
A radio crackled outside.
Gunfire reported near cabin.
Deputy Chen stood.
“Stay here.”
She stepped out.
Ethan looked through the ambulance window.
Officers moved around the vehicles.
Another transmission.
Then shouting.
A snowmobile came down the trail.
Deputy Pike was driving.
Rachel sat behind him.
Her face was covered in soot.
She was clutching the torn red coat.
They stopped beside the ambulance.
Pike pulled her off the machine.
She looked at Ethan through the window.
He could not read her expression.
Chen opened the ambulance door.
“We need to move.”
“What happened?” Ethan asked.
“Voss fired at deputies. He’s still mobile.”
“Rachel?”
“She says she went back for something.”
Rachel raised the coat.
The hem was ripped apart.
“The drive,” Ethan said.
Rachel nodded.
“I found it in the snow.”
Deputy Pike took it from her.
“Evidence now.”
Rachel did not argue.
The sheriff convoy began moving downhill fifteen minutes later.
The snowplow led.
Then the ambulance.
Then two SUVs.
Ethan sat beside Sophie while Rachel rode in a separate vehicle with a medic.
He thought the nightmare was finally shrinking behind them.
Then the lead snowplow stopped.
Hard.
The ambulance braked.
Sophie grabbed Ethan’s arm.
“What happened?”
Deputy Chen looked through the windshield.
A tree lay across the road.
Not fallen naturally.
Its trunk had been cut.
Fresh sawdust colored the snow.
Chen swore.
“Caleb.”
Officers got out.
The road was narrow, cliff rising on one side and a steep drop on the other.
They could not drive around.
The snowplow operator climbed down to inspect the trunk.
Ethan’s satellite communicator vibrated.
He almost ignored it.
Then he saw the sender.
Not the emergency response center.
An unknown device had sent a direct satellite message request.
He opened it.
One sentence.
ASK RACHEL WHAT SHE PLANNED TO DO AFTER SOPHIE WAS GONE.
Ethan stared.
A second message appeared.
SHE TOLD ME EVERYTHING.
Then a photograph loaded slowly.
A phone screen.
Text messages between Rachel and Caleb.
One line from Rachel was highlighted.
AFTER THIS WEEKEND, SHE’LL BE GONE AND ETHAN WILL FINALLY LET US START OVER.
Ethan felt cold spread through his body.
Sophie looked up.
“What is it?”
He locked the screen.
“Nothing.”
For the first time that day, he lied to his daughter.
He hated himself immediately.
Before Ethan could decide whether to show the messages to Deputy Chen, Sophie touched his wrist.
“Dad?”
He locked the communicator again.
“What?”
“Is the wolf following us?”
He looked through the side window at the blowing snow.
“No. I don’t think so.”
“Did it want to hurt me?”
Ethan hesitated. He had spent the last several hours learning what happened when adults chose convenient answers over honest ones.
“I don’t know what it wanted,” he said. “It’s a wild animal. Caleb made it used to finding food near people, and that made it dangerous.”
Sophie nodded slowly.
“So Caleb made it bad?”
“He made the situation bad.”
She thought about the distinction.
Across the road, through the rear window of the sheriff SUV, Ethan saw Rachel turn her head toward the ambulance. Even at that distance, he could tell she was watching them. Her face looked exhausted and frightened. For a fraction of a second he remembered the woman he had married—the woman who brought soup when Sophie had the flu, who laughed too loudly at bad movies, who once drove forty minutes back to a restaurant because Sophie had forgotten a stuffed rabbit beneath the table.
Then he remembered the messages on the screen.
People did not become simple just because the truth became ugly. Rachel had done kind things. She had also deliberately frightened a child. One fact did not erase the other.
Ethan realized that was going to be one of the hardest parts of what came next.
Sophie leaned against him.
“Are we almost home?”
“Not yet.”
“Will we go home tonight?”
“I’m going to do everything I can.”
This time he did not promise what he could not control.
Then the first shot came.
Outside, a gunshot cracked.
The snowplow operator dropped behind the vehicle.
Deputy Chen shouted, “DOWN!”
Ethan pulled Sophie onto the ambulance floor.
Glass shattered above them.
Caleb was not behind them anymore.
May you like
He was ahead.
Waiting on the blocked road.
