Page 2 of Keeper of Talon Mountain
I lie on the floor for what feels like hours but is probably only minutes. I keep telling myself I need to be more prepared, but tonight I realize if I stay, I may never see tomorrow.
I wait until I hear Derek's even breathing through the closed bedroom door. Then I move with silent precision, gathering only what I can carry: the cash from under the sink and my hidden stash containing my grandmother's compass necklace, two changes of clothing, my driver's license and my social security card. Everything else—my photos, my books, the life I built here—I leave behind.
In the kitchen, I write a note on the whiteboard where we leave each other messages:Gone to stay with my sister. Need space to think.
I don't have a sister. But Derek doesn't know that, and it might buy me a few hours before he starts looking.
The Phoenix night is warm as I slip out the back door and walk three blocks to where I left my car earlier, parking it away from the apartment in case I needed to leave in a hurry. Smart, I tell myself. I was smart.
I drive south with no real plan except to put distance between myself and Derek. Tucson. Maybe California. Somewhere he won't find me.
I'm forty miles outside Phoenix when I pull into a rest stop to catch my breath. That's when I notice the envelope in my purse—the one the postal worker gave me yesterday that I shoved in my bag and forgot about. Official-looking, forwarded from my old address.
Inside is a letter from an attorney in Anchorage, Alaska.
Dear Ms. Bennett,
We regret to inform you of the passing of your grandmother, Eleanor Bennett. As executor of her estate, I am writing to inform you that you have been named sole beneficiary of her property, including a hunting lodge located outside Glacier Hollow, Alaska, along with all contents and associated land.
Please contact our office at your earliest convenience to arrange transfer of the property.
I read it three times, each time feeling like I'm hallucinating. My grandmother. I haven't seen her since I was sixteen, haven't spoken to her since my mother's funeral eight years ago. We'd exchanged Christmas cards, but that was all. She'd lived alone in Alaska for as long as I could remember, some kind of hermit who preferred the wilderness to family.
And she left me her lodge.
I sit in that rest stop parking lot as the sun comes up, watching the Arizona desert turn gold and pink, and I make a decision. Not California. Not Tucson.
Alaska.
A place so far from Phoenix that Derek will never find me. A place where I can disappear into the wilderness and start over. A place where I can be someone new.
That night, I'm on a plane north with everything I own in a single duffel bag. At the airport, I slip my phone into the jacket pocket of a man who looks like a linebacker—let Derek track that phone to wherever this guy is going. I buy a prepaid phone at a kiosk with cash, use the bathroom to scrub off my makeup and see the full extent of the bruises. Mara Bennett, Phoenix accountant, is disappearing. She's dying in that apartment with Derek's hands around her throat.
The woman who steps off the plane in Anchorage is someone different. Someone harder. Someone who's learned that the only person you can trust to keep you safe is yourself.
The attorney meets me at his office with keys and documents. The lodge is three hours north, in a town called Glacier Hollow. Population 312. No stoplight, no chain stores, no way for anyone to find me unless they know exactly where to look.
Perfect.
When I finally see the lodge—a weathered structure of logs and stone nestled against the base of Talon Mountain—I feel something I haven't felt in months. Hope.
It needs work. The roof leaks, the plumbing is questionable, and there's a family of squirrels living in the attic. But it's mine. All mine. No one can take it from me, control it, or use it against me.
I spend my first night in Alaska sitting on the porch wrapped in one of my grandmother's old quilts, watching the northern lights dance across the sky. The air is cold and clean, nothing like the desert heat I left behind. And for the first time in years, I feel like I can breathe.
I don't know what I'll do with this place. Turn it into a business, maybe. A bed and breakfast for tourists who want to experience Alaska wilderness. Something that's mine, that I control, that no one can take away.
What I do know is this: I'm never going back. Never being that scared, broken woman again. Never letting anyone have that kind of power over me.
I touch the bruises still fading on my throat and make myself a promise. This is my sanctuary now. My fortress. And I'll defend it with everything I have.
But tonight, in the quiet darkness of my new home, I can't imagine ever letting anyone close enough to matter again.
1
MARA
Glacier Hollow, Alaska
