Page 43 of Midnight Secrets

But the Hammonds’ cabin wasn’t on a road. It was well off into the bush.

After half an hour, she turned off the road and plunged into the wilderness.

Immediately, our speed slowed. Deadfall timber and boulders littered the forest floor, impeding our progress.

Steadily, though, we maneuvered through the bush and up the mountain. When, finally, the pin on the map was within five minutes of our location, I signaled Claire to stop.

She killed the engine on her ATV and removed her helmet. “Are you sure you want me to stay back this far? It’s half a mile away still.”

“Yes.” I cut the engine on my own machine and got off, removing my helmet. “I’ll hike in. You have your radio?”

She unzipped a pack on the back of her four-wheeler and produced the handheld radio Chief Bartles gave each of us.

I removed the one from my pack, along with a box of ammunition and my rifle. Normally, I carried a 9mm handgun,but it was impossible to holster with the heavy clothing. The rifle was more practical, anyway. It had more stopping power against a grizzly than my nine.

“Don’t forget the satellite phone.” She pointed at my pack.

“You keep it. I might not be in a position to use it. Do you know the morse code for S.O.S.?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Hopefully, it won’t come to that, but just in case…”

She gave me a tight smile. “Yeah. Just in case,” she said, her voice soft and thin. Those deep, midnight eyes darted away.

I slung the rifle across my chest and turned it so it lay over my back, business end facing the ground, then stepped toward her. “Claire. Hey, look at me.”

The wariness in her pretty eyes pulled at my heart. She’d been fierce and in control through all of this so far. Even when she was worried about her damn dog, I hadn’t seen this… stress or deep worry on her face.

I took her hand. “Everything will be fine. Even if Warren is there and armed, I know what I’m doing. He won’t be the first criminal with a weapon I’ve faced.”

“Maybe not, but out here, help is a long way away. Even with the sat phone and the ability to call in a helicopter, it’s probably an hour to the nearest hospital.” The worry in her eyes turned to sternness, and she jabbed me in the chest with her free hand. “Don’t get shot. Or stabbed.”

I offered her my sunniest smile, hoping to set her at ease. “I’ll be fine. Keep the grizzlies off my back, okay?”

She rolled her eyes and pulled her hand away, the worry finally fading from her eyes. “Oh, go away.”

But it was still there in her voice.

Sobering, I took her hand again. “I promise I will be fine, okay?”

She gave a jerky nod, meeting my gaze, then looked away. “You better be.”

Giving her fingers one last squeeze, knowing there was nothing I could say to completely assuage her fears, I snatched the GPS device from my ATV, noting my current coordinates, and left her with the vehicles.

It didn’t take long to lose sight of her. Even with the bare lower branches of the pines, there were just so many, it obscured her and the vehicles from view.

The first stirrings of apprehension slithered through my gut, making the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. Someone—or something—could sneak up on me out here, and I wouldn’t see them coming until the last moment.

Hopefully, I’d hear a bear or a moose long before I saw them.

Luckily, I saw neither.

Not quite ten minutes later, I stopped on the edge of the clearing that housed the cabin and studied the small, log-frame building.

The windows were dark, but that didn’t necessarily mean no one was home. It was daylight.

But the bigger clue it was empty was the lack of smoke drifting from the chimney. I didn’t even smell remnants of it. The cabin was too crude to have a furnace, even if it had a generator. There was also no propane tank in sight.

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