THE

PERFECT ESCAPE

An absolutely addictive and unputdownable psychological thriller

ADRIANE LEIGH

Originally published as The Sunday Wife

Revised edition 2024

Joffe Books, London

www.joffebooks.com

First published as The Sunday Wife in the USA in 2021

Also published as The Chalet in 2022

© Adriane Leigh 2021, 2024

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The spelling used is American English except where fidelity to the author’s rendering of accent or dialect supersedes this. The right of Adriane Leigh to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

We love to hear from our readers! Please email any feedback you have to: feedback@joffebooks.com

Cover art by Nick Castle

ISBN: 978-1-83526-768-4

CONTENTS

Prologue

One Year Ago

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Acknowledgments

Also by Adriane Leigh

For the wild ones that are brave enough to live with open hearts after breathtaking pain and loss. Love is your gift to the world, never let them take it from you.

Prologue

“What izz this?” he mumbled as I led him off trail a few steps, my gaze focused on the shovel piercing the dirt just ahead. I didn’t reply to his question. I was hoping he didn’t notice where we were — that he was here just last night digging my grave — but then, these woods look wildly different at night than they do in the daytime.

Even more so with a truckload of tranquilizers in your system.

We reached the shovel, the tip sunk into a mound of dirt beside the thick trunk of an evergreen, and just next to it, a human-sized hole in the ground. We reached the edge, his eyes unfocused as I planted my hands on his face. I let a moment of sympathy fill my eyes as I thought of all that we’d been through together over the years. With him I thought I’d found happily ever after, but instead I’d uncovered lies. So many lies. Our castle was built out of sand, and little did I know that I was playing the part of the fool, not the princess.

“I wish I could say I’m going to regret this.”

He grunted, blinked, rubbed at his eyes and then opened them again. He was having trouble focusing on anything. I planted my palms on his chest and leaned in for one last kiss from the man I thought I loved.

“Thank you for finally showing me who you really are. I never deserved you — I deserve so much better,” I said. “Thank you for helping me find myself, for teaching me never to rely on a man again. None of you can be trusted.”

“W-what?” I saw a flicker of awareness before it slid away again.

“Have a good trip, baby.” A sinister smile curled my lips before I shoved him with all of my strength. He stumbled once, arms shooting into the air. Just as he began his descent into the fresh grave he’d dug for me just last night, he clasped my wrist and we fell into the black hole together. His other palm locked around my wrist and we began to struggle.

“Fuck!” I tried to pull away but he was stronger than I’d thought he’d be. Black dirt covered us as I tried to wrest myself from his grip. Grunts filled the air before I freed one hand and scooped dirt into his eyes. I threw more in his mouth and then clamped down on his lips in an attempt to suffocate him. He was strong though and he threw me off easily. I landed against the opposite wall of dirt and he dug a foot into my chest. The air escaped my lungs and for a moment I thought, This is it. My life will end here, in a shallow grave in the mountains never to be seen again.

He attempted to focus long enough to lock his hand around my wrist again, but his eyes were still blurry. His sense of perception must have been off because he swiped at the air without even coming close to me. It’s then I remembered the shovel only a few feet from the grave. If I could climb out quickly enough I could knock it over, grab the handle, and land the final death blow.

I stepped on his shin to help boost me up, clutching at the wall of dirt as I tried to climb out. He grasped my ankle and tried to yank me backwards but his strength was still fading. I kicked him off easily, reaching for the handle of the shovel. It was still just out of reach. I needed another few inches. I kicked dirt into his face then, yelling and screaming as loudly as if I’d just seen a bear in the woods. Hot tears filled my eyes as I scraped and crawled and scrambled my way up the loose dirt wall, every footfall causing more of the wall to crumble beneath my weight.

He caught the edge of my shoe and yanked me back into him, but just as I fell, my fingers grasped a single root that was jutting out from the dirt. I hung on to it tightly, heaving with all of my strength until I overpowered him and crawled out of my grave. My hands clasped the handle of the shovel as I pulled it from the dirt, turning and swinging it wildly, expecting him to be hovering behind me.

But he wasn’t. He was sitting on his ass in the grave looking like a confused little boy.

I wanted to drop the shovel and run to him, my body accustomed to comforting him in times of distress. But comforting this man might have killed me.

“I wish it didn’t have to be this way,” I finally uttered.

The sound of the first thwack of the spade kissing his skull will haunt me for years to come. The rest, I blocked out.

Minutes or hours later, I stumbled into the cabin covered in dirt and sweat.

I gulped down a ball of hot tears as I walked straight to the shower to comfort myself under the warm spray. I stood in the water until it turned ice cold, and even then I allowed it to seep into my muscles to remind myself this was real. I am not the same woman I was when I first moved into this cabin. Now, I am a murderer.

I turned the faucet off, cutting the stream of water and stepping out of the shower. I wrapped myself in a towel, padding out into the kitchen as I thought about the mess I’d have to clean up. I’d have to get rid of all evidence that he was there — that he even existed at all. I walked to the fridge, planning to pour myself a glass of white wine in an attempt to calm my nerves, when a soft grunt interrupted the silence.

With terror surging through my system, I spun, eyes landing squarely on the last person I expected to see.

Oh fuck. He’s still here.

One Year Ago

Working late again.

No wonder she fell asleep exhausted at her chair in the early hours of the morning. It’s just too bad she left her front door wide open, her fragile life vulnerable to any asshole that might want to take advantage.

Like me.

I’d checked up on her often since I’d been back in town. So much time had passed, I wondered if she’d welcome me like old times.

Sweet Freya had come to obsess me.

I never imagined she actually needed checking on; the last time I’d left her she was strong and capable, now she seemed a broken shell to be handled with care. A grin crossed my lips as I thought about my next move. Maybe rushing into her house with a ski mask just to scare her and teach her a lesson about trusting strangers.

But I wasn’t a stranger.

I just needed the right moment, and that would take strategy. I fingered the tiny digital tracker in my front pocket, anxious to slip it under the wheel well of her car to keep tabs on her. She was cautious enough to pull her car into the garage each night and lock the doors, but with time she would loosen up and then I would make my move.

With time, I was confident I could convince Freya Fremont of anything. I knew her well enough to know that at least.

I zoomed the lens in on the bay windows of the bungalow to find her awake now and chatting on the phone, a freshly steeped cup of tea on the table.

“Probably him,” I grunted, making a note to check her cell records to confirm who she was talking to.

She twirled her hair between her fingers as she spoke, then took slow sips from her mug when she listened.

Funny how a girl can get snowed in by love so easily. There she was chatting away, thinking herself perfectly safe in his arms, and here he was, the devil incarnate, putting her in harm’s way without her cute little upturned cheeks even knowing it. She was probably just one in a line of victims.

She hung up the phone a moment later and sat at the table, a soft frown on her face. Apparently love wasn’t all roses in paradise this morning. She climbed the stairs, where I knew she’d be headed for her morning shower in the en suite master, followed by another cup of tea before she’d settle into the small corner office and sit behind her computer, working diligently all afternoon.

This was her daily routine. I’d already established it from the first day I’d set foot in her life. I sighed and turned away, slipping the key into the ignition, when I saw her stop at her closet and rummage through clothes on the hangers and then watched as she came down the front steps of the small bungalow ten minutes later, dressed in dark leggings and a button-down blouse.

Apparently Freya Fremont had a few surprises in store for me today.

Chapter 1

Loved seeing you today. Wish it was more often.

I frowned before locking the screen of my phone and throwing it into my bag.

“Who’s that, babe?” Tav walked in, hiking rucksack on his back and a warm smile in his eyes.

He was so sweet.

He’d lose it if he knew I was talking to Bradley again.

I miss you, Bradley had said at the coffee shop yesterday afternoon.

I miss me too, I’d thought as my daydreams about this upcoming getaway distracted me.

Bradley only remembered the girl I was. The one in cut-offs and scuffed sneakers, quick to smile and quicker to anger. He’d asked me if I was still a spitfire like the old days, the pad of his thumb caressing my wrist with each drawn-out syllable. He had a way of drawing me in, even after all the time spent between us.

Life had wrestled me into a chokehold the last few years. I thought of Tav’s words the last time I’d seen him, his concern that I was pulling away from him. In truth, I was. Hiring my oldest childhood friend to handle the outdoor maintenance at my tiny bungalow may seem unwise with hindsight, but at the time I’d been happy to be the first client in his new business.

“You look a million miles away. Did you wrap everything up with work?” Tav passed me in our small kitchen and turned my thoughts to work.

“Sorry, it’s been so long since we’ve had a weekend away, I feel like I’m going to forget to send an email or client mock-up. It’s been so hard to focus lately.”

He smiled warmly as he passed me and went out through our front door. I inhaled his usual cologne. The same green bottle I bought him every year for his birthday. It wasn’t that it was so perfectly proportioned that it naturally lent itself to his yearly gift, it’s that he liked it that way. If the bottle began to look prematurely low, he’d cautiously move it to the back of the shelf and go without for a few days to conserve so I could buy him his new bottle.

Tav liked his life to run a certain way, and luckily for me I fit naturally inside that.

Neither of us liked to cook, so we ate out often.

We jokingly called ourselves “spiritual but not religious” for the irony of it, and preferred dancing around the house on Saturday evening with wine before making slow, sweet love every Sunday morning.

Rituals meant everything.

“Babe — if we’re going to make it to the chalet by dark we need to get on the road. Did you load all of your stuff into the car?” Tav finally paused, taking me in with a concerned look. “Do you want my help?”

“I’m ready. I was just thinking about something my mom used to say about—”

Just then his phone vibrated loudly and he held a finger up to me as he hit the answer button on the Bluetooth headset that fit snugly in his ear. He mouthed: “Tell me in the car, okay?”

I nodded, swiping the hardcover that had collected dust on our coffee table for the last year. I never made time to read; maybe this long weekend would be my chance. Self-imposed isolation at a winter chalet — "the perfect getaway to reconnect,” Tav had breathed at my ear as he told me about it.

He’d come home with the slim pamphlet a few weeks ago. A smart house in the mountains with all of the modern amenities and none of the headaches, read its tagline.

“I can’t wait for the next three days.” Tav appeared at the door then, car keys dangling from one finger. “Eight hours and counting.”

“Eight hours . . . would you kill me if I napped?”

“Not in the slightest.” He pulled me against his chest and pressed a soft kiss to my lips. “I want you fully refreshed for the weekend I have planned.”

I let my heartbeat match his as I took in his comforting scent. The last two years with Tav had been the best of my life. He’d taught me how to laugh more and worry less. He took care of me in a way no one had ever done before. So why did it feel like the distance had grown between us these last few months? We were both overworked, but happily so. He spent more nights in the city at the office, but I didn’t mind. Being together only three or four nights a week kept our relationship fresh. I always looked forward to seeing Tav. Every moment was priceless.

Always the gentleman, he held my hand as we left our suburban Lancaster bungalow. Opening the passenger door of the car, he snuggled me inside with the fuzzy blanket he’d packed for me, then nestled the book in my lap and strapped me in securely with the seat belt.

“Good night, sleep tight, Princess,” he teased. “By the time you wake up we’ll be in the mountains.”

A thrill of excitement coursed through me. “I can’t wait.”

“You and me both.”

Little did I know it would be the beginning of the end for both of us.

Chapter 2

“Hope you like to snowshoe.”

My eyes fluttered open and I yawned, the book I’d fallen asleep reading still open in my lap.

“Have a good nap?” Tav asked. I nodded, back aching despite the heated leather seats.

“It’s only October, how does this place have so much snow?” I complained as shadowy snowdrifts streaked past my window.

I turned the heat up instinctively.

Tav chuckled. “Welcome to the mountains.”

“How much farther?”

“Not long now. Maybe another hour, less if it weren’t for the snow.”

I watched the whirling snowflakes before they met their end on the windshield. We didn’t pass many cars, and before I could blink again another small town was fading in the rear view. Tav slowed as we slid through a four-way intersection. He cussed under his breath, then eased into a driveway and turned around. “That was our turn.”

I didn’t reply, only watched him navigate this new landscape.

We rarely saw snow this deep at our home in Lancaster, and he saw even less as he worked in Virginia Beach.

The elevation started to climb as soon as we passed beneath an old-fashioned covered bridge. It looked eerie in the snowy darkness, like something out of a cheap horror film. “These woods are giving me intense Blair Witch vibes.”

Tav grinned then. “Here’s hoping the driveway isn’t snowed in. I can’t imagine living in a place like this, a person might as well be in the Arctic.”

I let his words hang as the road narrowed and continued to twist and climb up a mountain. We turned an almost jackknife sharp corner near a stand of towering evergreens and a dark shape darted out in front of the headlights.

I shrieked. Tav tapped on the brakes. “It’s only a deer, Freya. I need to get you out of the house more if a deer strikes terror in you.”

I laughed. “I’ve been a hermit, even the squirrels in the backyard scare me at this point.”

“You should come with me to Virginia Beach for a few days, you can work from the townhouse all day or there’s a ton of great coffee shops in the neighborhood.”

I shook my head, already not keen on the idea of leaving my home office set-up. “You’re pushing it with a long weekend, Garrison.”

“What are you gonna do when we get married? I thought we talked about a destination wedding to Tahiti?” His hand rested on my knee for a moment and squeezed.

“Maybe.” I fingered the engagement ring on my left hand. I remembered the night we’d talked about it. After gin and tonics and two rounds of making love, he’d begged me to marry him while his lips were pressed to mine.

I hadn’t answered then, but by the time he’d brought it up the next morning at breakfast, I’d started to open to the idea of him and me forever. From the moment Tav and I had met at the art gallery two years ago, we’d been inseparable. I’d stayed with him at his bungalow that first weekend, and outside of a few trips back to my tiny apartment for clothes, I’d never really left. Our lives fit easily together, our flow always fluid and seamless. We were meant to be, he’d whispered in my ear. I’d believed him.

But then why were Bradley’s texts burning like a flame in my back pocket?

I’d known Bradley since we were kids — we’d grown up side by side in our tiny Pennsylvania coal town. He’d stayed when I went to Durham for college and we’d lost touch as our lives took different directions. I’d never really planned to go home again, especially when I was offered an internship at a prestigious advertising company in the graphic design department. One quick summer and I was hired full-time after graduation. Within six months I was handing in my resignation though, determined never to work under a boss again.

Everything about my time with that firm left a bad taste in my mouth. It was then I vowed to work from home, even if I had to work harder than every other freelance graphic designer. I hit the internet and then the streets of Philadelphia dropping off business cards and setting up meetings with any firm looking for freelance artists.

Business had boomed ever since, and when Tav was offered the full-time contract with the Department of Defense, I’d been willing to move wherever was needed. But he already had his first surprise for me then — he was keeping the house in Lancaster and adding my name to the deed. One less hoop to jump through when we got married, he’d pledged.

Plus, his new defense contract gave him a living stipend in the city, and so it was that he worked four days a week in Virginia Beach, and then drove home each long weekend to be with me. Our lives found a new natural rhythm, and we slowly began to talk about when we would get married.

And then everything fell apart.

Chapter 3

I thought of the first moment Mom told me she was moving to California. I’d smiled and nodded through the phone line as tears filled my eyes. She was all I had. I may have been freshly graduated from college, but it had been only her and me for nearly two and a half decades. The fact that she wanted to move across the country and follow her dreams after giving me all of mine was brave. I just wasn’t sure I was brave enough to live a life without her in it every day.

I was lucky. She called every day and I helped her pick out paint and curtains for her new condominium in Monterey. Her happy artist soul had finally found a home. My father had crushed her spirit early on, but just like the strong, stubborn woman she was, she carried on for me. She raised a baby alone and she worked every day, including weekends, if that’s what it took to put food on our table.

But Mom didn’t talk much about my dad. Only that he was a drifter in college that she had only known for a summer. He moved on and she was left with me at the age of seventeen. When she brought him up, she always smiled wistfully and closed her eyes and told me that I was just like him. One night after my bedtime story I’d asked her if she’d ever looked for him, if she’d ever tried to tell him about me. She waved me off and said only that wild things die in captivity.

It’s hard to miss something you’ve never had, and Mom made life so carefree and fun I never felt like I missed out on anything.

Until the week after I graduated from Duke and she told me she was moving. I offered to help move her across the country but she’d only laughed and said that she’d already sold everything. Then she drove off into the Appalachian mist, me in her rear view.

It was after that that I began working obsessively.

And not much later, Tav and I moved to Lancaster. I was so happy and things were moving so quickly that I lost myself for a while in all that happiness. And then the worst had happened. I’d gotten the call that changed everything.

My phone rumbled to life in my bag then, pulling me back into reality. I pulled the phone from the dark depths of my purse, the screen lit with Bradley’s name. Tav glanced at me across the cab. I swiped, ignoring the call and letting it fall back into my purse, thinking maybe now was the time I would have to block Bradley. No matter what he wanted, it was always too often, and what Bradley didn’t understand was that Tav was so well connected that in one breath he could ruin Bradley’s new life.

“Who’s calling you so late?”

“Telemarketer. I’ve been getting them all hours of the day lately,” I answered him.

Tav tapped his finger on the steering wheel, his jaw working back and forth quietly as his eyes focused on the snowy road ahead of us. The car suddenly felt too small, the stagnated air left me choking for oxygen.

Silence hung between us as the narrow road turned curvy. Evergreen limbs hung heavy with wet ice and snow and it dripped on the windshield in fat raindrops. I wrapped my arms around my torso, rubbing my palms against them for warmth. It wasn’t just the outside temperature that felt frigid.

Tav’s mood swings gave me whiplash some days, but I had a way of feeling things too deeply too — we were the same that way.

“I hope you enjoy this weekend, I’m never driving into the mountains again,” Tav grit his teeth as he slowed the vehicle. We approached a narrow suspension bridge, the headlights lighting the sign: Deception Gorge Overlook.

“Are you kidding? This is insanely beautiful.” I cracked the window, the chilly air rushing through my senses.

The evergreens broke at the edge of a cliff before the tires rolled out onto the icy grates of the bridge. A gorge rushed with white rapids more than a hundred yards below us. Moonlight sparkled on the water and made the evergreen needles shimmer with streaks of silver.

“If the GPS had mentioned a suspension bridge I think I would have booked us the first luxury hotel at the base of the mountain and called it paradise.”

I giggled, finally feeling the pressure lift the further removed we were from home.

“It’ll be an adventure.”

“As long as I don’t have to chop any wood.”

“Mm, no desire to be a lumberjack?”

Tav shook his head, fingers flexing around the wheel as we reached the center of the bridge. It swayed with the breeze, and I had to admit even that freaked me out.

“Does anyone actually live out here in the middle of winter?” Tav grunted.

“It’s not even winter yet.” I frowned, realizing for the first time just how extreme the weather must get up here if this bridge was already iced over in October.

“Do you think it’s too late to turn back?” Tav murmured.

I didn’t reply, recognizing the thread of frustration in his tone.

I knew better than to add fuel to the flame that always simmered just beneath the surface.

“No wonder this place was available.” Tav looked out his side window as he eased the car off the suspension bridge. He breathed a sigh of relief and loosened his grip on the wheel, then looked at me with a quiet smile. “It’s damn near uninhabitable.”

“So I guess that means we won’t be running down the mountain for coffee and croissants in the morning.”

“I guess not.”

We drove for a few miles deeper into the woods as the road twisted at a steep incline. The trees towered forty and fifty feet straight into the air, and even though it was dark, there was just enough moonlight to see a steep ledge just a few feet from our tires.

We moved through the wilderness as the road switched back and forth, climbing higher until the trees opened and a wide parking area overlooking the cliff’s edge came into view. It was terrifying and exhilarating in the same instance.

A few hours and a lifetime away from the world at sea level.

“It feels like we’re in the clouds.”

The wheels began spinning. Tav slowed, a frown tracing across his features. He gave it some gas, and then the car stopped altogether. Tav whistled under his breath.

“I hope this was the parking spot they were talking about.”

“Here?”

“The road usually goes all the way up the mountain, but they said in the snow you may have to park and snowshoe in.”

“Tav, it’s almost midnight.”

“I told you we had to get on the road early.”

Annoyance bubbled to life inside him as he jerked on the steering wheel and flung us in reverse on the ice until we were one tire in the snowbank. “I hope you’ve got your hiking shoes laced up.”

Now he was just being an asshole.

Tav jumped out, slamming the door behind him before he opened the trunk and pulled out a flashlight. He bounced the beam around the trees and up the road. It was covered in multiple inches of new fallen snow but not so much that you couldn’t see tire tracks from the last person that had crossed the bridge before us.

“At least we know someone else is up here with us.”

“That could be a blessing or a nightmare,” Tav muttered. He pulled his rucksack over his shoulders and then held mine up. “You ready? It should only be another mile up the road.”

“Comforting.” I frowned as I climbed out of the car, a blast of chilly air much cooler than Tav’s attitude had ever been. “Luckily, I’ve been going extra hard on leg day. That mountain doesn’t have anything on me.” I held up my tiny biceps like I was showing off.

Tav couldn’t help but laugh; the crinkle at his eyes always made me smile and made even the stressful moments worth it. “Is there anything else you need in here for tonight? We can come back in the morning for the rest.”

“I think I’ve got everything.”

“Do you have your pills?”

I nodded. I could hear them even now, rattling in the tiny side pocket I’d tucked them into earlier.

“Off we go then.” Tav charged off into the darkness ahead of me.

I hustled after him, reluctant to fall too far behind. I followed his footsteps, allowing my smaller ones to nestle inside his as we climbed. By the time we’d reached the curve at the top of the road, I was roasting inside my winter jacket. I paused, taking in the black landscape, evergreen limbs reaching out to kiss our fingers as the road narrowed to a single track while it hugged the edge of a cliff.

The water rushed loudly below us, the crisp wind biting my cheeks and bringing a smile to my face.

“We made it,” Tav sang.

Tears of joy nearly iced my cheeks as I took in a sprawling chalet nestled in a stand of fat evergreens. One warm yellow light reflected out through the floor-to-ceiling peaked windows.

“This is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.”

“And the coldest,” Tav huffed, pushing up the rest of the small incline until he reached the driveway of the chalet.

“Do you think anyone else lives up here?”

“I don’t see those car tracks anymore; the wind must have erased them.”

“It feels like we’re on top of the world. I didn’t even know New England had mountains this big.”

“I know you said you wanted to go to Alaska someday, but this felt like the next best thing.” Tav pulled me into his arms when I was close enough.

“I love it,” I breathed as we walked up the driveway together, the chalet cozy amid the frozen landscape.

“I heard there’s a waterfall, maybe we can go for a morning hike and look for it.”

“Sounds perfect,” I whispered as we climbed the steps of the chalet. Tav pressed his thumb at a hidden keypad.

“I scanned my fingerprint on the app on my phone — that’s how we lock and unlock the doors. Isn’t that cool?” Tav swung the door wide open and a blast of heat thawed my cheeks.

A warm fire crackled in the corner and soft jazz music played from hidden speakers.

“Wow.”

“I told you it was going to be good. There’s a sunken spa bathtub with your name on it in the master bathroom.”

“Would you like me to draw a bath?” a female voice sang through the speakers.

I froze. “Who was that?”

Tav dropped his bag as he laughed. “It’s a smart house. Turn on the kitchen lights, please.”

“Lights on.” The voice responded.

“She sounds so real it’s creepy.”

“We can switch the voice — would you like a British butler for the weekend? I bet there’s a setting for that.”

I frowned. “This house is like a weird third wheel.”

Tav grinned, catching my chin with his thumb and kissing me softly. “Welcome to your winter paradise, beautiful. How about that bath? I’ll bring you champagne and strawberries.”

I hummed, letting him kiss me again. “That sounds like Heaven.”

But my Heaven would soon turn into my purgatory. I still sometimes wonder if he knew then, knew that we were about to fall apart. Knew that soon, one of us would be dead.

Chapter 4

Sunshine streaked my eyelids the next morning.

I yawned and stretched like a cat, my body sore from Tav’s hands and lips all over my skin. After he drew me a bath, we sipped champagne and listened to jazz, and then we made love half of the night. I fell asleep in his arms, which never happened back at home.

I breathed deeply, a smile on my face as I took in the scent of his skin on the sheets next to me. I rolled over and hugged the pillow, inhaling him. The chalet may have been far out of the way, but maybe that was just what we needed to reconnect with each other.

I pushed myself out of bed, extending my sore muscles, and winced as I walked into the master bathroom. Perfect thumbprint bruises marked either side of my hips from when he’d held me against the wall and tackled me with his lips. He was wild, but this place made me feel wild too.

I also hadn’t taken my medication last night. I wasn’t supposed to drink on it and rarely did, but even just one glass of champagne would go to my head. I lost myself in the bath bubbles and the bubbles in my glass, and being locked in Tav’s arms made me feel carefree in a way that I hadn’t felt since before . . .

Since before the only thing that mattered was stolen from me.

I turned on the shower and washed myself quickly, running shampoo and conditioner through my hair, and then wrapping myself in the thick robe that hung on the tiled wall outside the shower. By the time I was making my way downstairs, I could smell the coffee. I paused at the landing and took in the 360-degree view around me. From the loft that overlooked the living room, windows surrounded every corner. Snow-capped mountains and lush evergreens dominated the view. The chalet was utterly isolated and so peaceful.

“Good morning, Beautiful.” Tav unhooked his ankles and stood from the couch. By the time I reached the bottom of the stairs, he was across the kitchen and pouring me my first mug of hot coffee. A drizzle of honey and a sprinkle of cinnamon on top. Just as I liked it.

He held the cup out to me. I took it gratefully and inhaled the aroma once before taking a sip. “Thank you.”

“How did you sleep?” he asked.

“Perfect.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead and patted my backside playfully before falling back onto the leather couch. His laptop was back in his lap just like when I first saw him. I walked across the room, pausing to sip my coffee as I took in the full mountain landscape stretched around us. The mountains didn’t just look snow-capped, they looked smothered in glaciers. I didn’t know how high up we were, but it was high enough that the air felt dryer and thinner.

“Where did you find this place?”

“The guys were talking about it at work.” He seemed distracted. I frowned.

“What time were you up this morning? I didn’t even hear you get out of bed.”

“You were sleeping pretty soundly. Snoring, as I recall.” He paused, then looked up at me with one quirked eyebrow and a smile.

I shot him an air kiss but he was already head down, consumed in his laptop. I went back to the mountains outside the window. It was breathtaking. But it felt like I was enjoying it alone.

“Do you still want to do that hike today?”

His fingers were fast at work on the keyboard, and he didn’t look up. “I have to get this report finished and then uploaded to the server at work. I’m hoping I can tap into the satellite ethernet. I’ll catch hell from Dad if a copy of this isn’t on his desk Monday morning.”

“And you were worried that I would get stuck with work up here?”

His gaze finally met mine. “I’m not the one that needs to take it easy.”

I swallowed, turning away from his eyes and back to my hot cup of coffee. “You know me so well, sometimes I hate it.”

This was usually the point in the relationship, two years in and going strong, when my heart started to bail. Mental itch got the better of me and I suddenly found myself bored with all things as they were. The desire to torch my life, so that I might rise like a phoenix from the ashes, was strong. I think that’s why Tav and I were different. I liked that he worked away all week — less chance I’d grow sick of him. I knew the day would come, but I didn’t think it would be so soon, and just as he was talking about wedding rings, my mind was taking long walks in the past with people I used to know.

I would be lying if I said I hadn’t wondered if Tav was seeing another woman in the city all week long. But I forced myself not to think about it. We were good. He was stressed, we were sliding into boredom, but I didn’t have anything to complain about. Not really.

Tav’s fingers worked furiously over the keyboard. The incessant tapping driving me to distraction, I pushed my feet into my fur-lined boots and opened the front door. I stepped onto the snow-covered porch, taking in a breath of frigid air as a rush of adrenaline coursed through my veins. Tav was missing out. The view behind his computer screen never changed; the view outside the chalet was once in a lifetime. I didn’t think I could live here with all of this isolation, but it was nothing short of breathtaking. A weekend truly far, far away. I felt like a princess, or an ice queen in a cloudy fortress.

I thought back to the first time I met Tav at Steph’s art gallery. His hair was ruffled, business suit jacket open, and tie loose as he rushed into the opening my college roommate and best friend was hosting. Tav’s family was a major supporter of the gallery and he was expected to say a few words. He wasn’t my type, not at all. I’d never dated a man that wore leather wing-tipped oxfords or attended art openings on Tuesday evenings. Steph introduced us and we spent the rest of the evening talking about art and music and work and the future of creative markets in a digital economy. The next thing I knew he was placing a kiss on my knuckles and asking to take me on a real date.

I’d typed my number into his phone as my cheeks flamed under his intense gaze.

I felt that gaze, even now, everywhere.

Tav was the most commanding man I’d ever been around. He demanded attention, charmed men, women, and children, and when he shone his light on you, he made you feel like the only person in his world.

Making people feel good was his superpower and it drew me to him like a stubborn moth to its fatal flame.

Even now I wonder if he’d done this to other women — told them what they wanted to hear until he was done with them. Ready to ruin their lives one perfect piece at a time. I thought we were the golden couple when we came to the mountain, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Chapter 5

“Hey, look at this.” I examined the topography map on the wall as the evening sun streaked the windows. Tav didn’t look up from his screen. He grunted once. I frowned. Tracing my fingertip along the lines of the map, I followed it until it looked like it led to an elevated area where a waterfall might feed down into a stream behind the property. “I think that waterfall is only half a mile behind the chalet.”

Tav didn’t answer.

I shoved my feet in my boots, filled a water bottle to the brim, and was at the front door before Tav finally looked up, half-interested. “Watch out for the wild animals.”

“Thanks.”

I was down the driveway and headed to the property line a moment later. I walked through the woods before a natural opening broke and I turned left down what looked like a groomed snowmobile trail. The snow was deep, over my knees, and drifting into tall hills perfect for small children to slide down. The further I walked, the more the woods shrouded me, muffling my snowy footsteps as the cloud around my shoulders lifted. It felt good to work my muscles back and forth; I did too much sitting in front of a computer back home. The further I walked down the path the quieter the woods became, only winter birds tweeting from above my head. I reached the end of the pathway, where a small cliff became a natural barrier for the path. A frozen gush of water hung suspended off the edge, glistening with sugary, glittery snowflakes. I took a deep breath, thrust my arms in the air, falling back into a snowdrift and giggling when the cloud of powder surrounded me.

My mind fell back to another time like this when Mom had taken me on a road trip to Colorado for Christmas. She rented the cheapest roadside motel she could find and every morning we danced in the new snow. It was one of my favorite Christmases, untraditional as it was.

I missed Mom constantly. The days were still so dark without her.

I stood from my makeshift snow angel and brushed the tips of the evergreens with my palms. The scent of the needles filled the air and made me wish Tav was with me, experiencing this for himself. So much nature and solitude forced me to be alone with my thoughts, usually a detrimental thing. Tav was often the first to tell me I was thinking too much, that maybe I should up the dosage of my medication if I still felt so horrible so many days.

Mourning was complicated. I’d spent a few appointments at the therapist learning that all I could do was give it time. I’d suffered a traumatic loss, pushing me to grieve wasn’t exactly a healing mechanism. But Tav had been my shoulder to cry on and my hand to hold every step of the way.

I turned, eager to distract myself by following my footsteps back up the path and weaving my way through the evergreens as I’d come. Just as I was about to break out of the tree-line, my eyes focused on one of the windows. At the loft level of the chalet, a shadow that looked like Tav hung in the recesses of the window, hand to his ear like he was talking on the phone. I watched carefully, wondering if my eyes were playing tricks on me. I rarely used my cell phone, and I didn’t think we had service way up here on the mountain. I made a mental note to check my phone for a connection later.

Maybe he’d found a way to tap into the satellite system and was using it for a business call. He had said he’d brought the satellite phone but at multiple dollars per minute, it was best used for emergencies only. I was about to walk out into the clearing when the figure moved closer to the window and turned into the sunlight.

It was definitely Tav. And he was definitely on the phone.

I gasped in shock. Would he consider it odd if I asked him who he was talking to? He would certainly never hesitate to ask me who was texting my phone. I moved along the edge of the tree-line, my eyes following the shadow in the window. I slanted towards the edge of the driveway, eyes on the chalet and not in front of me. Before I could catch myself, I stumbled on something hard buried beneath the drifts of snow. I groaned at the throbbing sensation inside my boot. I stood, hands on a nearby tree, testing my ankle with a few steps. It smarted, but not so much that I couldn’t walk on it. I twisted it in slow circles, careful not to hurt myself more than I already had.

I followed the narrow driveway, conscious of every step I took as I made my way back to the chalet. By the time I reached the steps, Tav was there holding the door open with a smile on his face. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.” I thought about asking him about the phone call. He seemed so concerned about me, I decided against it.

“I saw you fall out there.” He held my elbow, guiding me into the house. He was being so tender, a thrill ran down my spine with his attentive touch. “I slipped on a rock, I think. Did you figure out the internet?”

He shook his head, eyes casting to his laptop perched on the kitchen table. “Nope.”

“Really? How smart can a smart house really be without wi-fi?”

His eyes narrowed on mine. He dropped his hand at my elbow and moved back to his laptop. His phone sat next to it on the table. I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d been talking on it and was now lying.

“Did you get your report finished?”

He shrugged. “Nearly. Not that it will matter if I can’t get it uploaded before Monday. Another storm is coming. I was messing with the satellite system and found the weather station. They’re calling an Arctic clipper starting tomorrow, with below-freezing temperatures every night for the next ten days.”

My heart hammered quickly as I instantly began to count the number of survival supplies we might have at the chalet if the worst should happen. “Do you think there’s a back-up heat source in case the electricity goes out?”

“This place is off the grid.”

“What?”

“It’s an off-the-grid smart house. The department has contracted a private company to determine how resilient and cost-effective it is to implement some of these strategies to help offset the carbon footprint of traditionally built residences. They’re considering nationwide implementation, can you imagine? A suburbia of smart houses, it’s the future, Frey.”

“Well, future or not, please tell me we’re not the first guests to stay up here in the winter?” I half laughed.

Tav only shrugged. “No idea. It’s the latest model.”

I let his words hang heavy between us before I replied, “So do we have a generator or solar power?”

“A combination of both, plus radiant heating throughout. The sun never sets for long up here, we’ll be fine.”

“So even if the generator goes out, you won’t need to go full-lumberjack and cut down trees for a fire or anything?”

“Nope.”

“Well, that’s a relief.” I turned to the stove in the kitchen. “And food supplies?”

“We’re gone one weekend and suddenly you’re ready to be a pioneer woman? It’s fine, Freya.”

Just then the speakers in the house boomed. “The ten-day forecast for the Northeast region of the United States—”

“Can we turn her down . . . or off?” I complained.

“Sure.” Tav crossed the dining room to the touchpad screen next to the door. “But I bet she’s always listening.”

His words sent a serious chill down my spine. “The house? It’s recording us?”

He swiped a few settings on the touchpad and then the screen went black. “I wouldn’t think it’s recording us exactly, but the data’s being uploaded to a server somewhere that someone has access to.”

“Seriously?”

He shrugged. “That’s how it goes. The smarter it gets the better it gets at reading your mind.”

“This place is suddenly creeping me out. The house is always listening. Sounds like a plot out of a horror story.”

Tav sat back behind his computer, fingers fast at work.

This was why I appreciated our separate lives. Half of the time he was here, but really not.

I lingered at the kitchen counter, my eyes on the back of his head as he worked. Would I miss him if he was gone and I was suddenly alone? I hated to admit that I didn’t know. I’d adapted to life without him all week, and now that it was just the two of us it felt like the sun shone brighter on this mountain when I was outside and far from the air that he was constantly sweeping from my lungs. Tav had a big personality and it swung like a pendulum most days.

I wiped the counter with a wet rag as those thoughts lingered in my mind. Tav seemed to notice my latent anxiety. “Are you feeling okay? Maybe you should rest your foot.”

“Maybe.” I swallowed, the ache in my ankle turning into a dull throb. “I didn’t get much sleep last night. But I’d hate to waste our time in paradise.”

He stood from his chair. His warm palms worked at my shoulder blades before he placed a kiss at the crevice of my neck. “Take a nap. I’ll bring a pill for you, do you want something for that ankle too?”

There it was again.

My medication.

Did he think I was an addict? Did he want me to be?

I felt like I relied on that more than ever, even though it had been months since I’d gotten that fateful phone call. When I wasn’t on the pills I felt strung tight with energy, on the borderline of anxiety, but when I was on them I felt thick-headed and groggy all the time. Which was worse? With or without them? I still wasn’t sure. And was I being paranoid that it seemed like he preferred me on my meds?

I breathed in softly to relax as I let him guide me to the stairs. He gently rubbed my back, placed another kiss at the crown of my head, and whispered, “Sweet dreams, Sleepyhead.”

A chill ripped down my spine with his words. Something about the tone in his voice pulled me back to another time when fear shuttled through my veins like lava. I couldn’t place it then, but it was unmistakable to me now.

Chapter 6

She curled herself into the leather couch and opened a hardcover book in her lap. The very same that had been collecting dust on her nightstand for the last year.

He was my primary target, but she’d become tangled up in something dark. I grit my teeth together, half wanting to warn her, to throw in the assignment and tell her to run from this man she thought she loved. But she’d made her bed, gone into a life with eyes wide shut, and now she faced the consequences.

I heaved a sigh, only watching her half-heartedly as she buzzed around the empty room. She was alone a lot, that was the first thing I noted about her life.

Like he was laying low because he knew he had a trail. Of course he didn’t know — I was a pro, highly trained with a very specific skill set that allowed me to fly under the radar and observe every moment of any situation that most glossed over as unremarkable.

I was convinced that she was in the dark on every vile thing he’d done. If she knew, would she stay? The question rang between my ears like the incessant chop-chopping of helicopter rotors, haunting me long after it should be out of earshot.

Freya climbed the stairs to her bedroom after dark and tucked herself into bed with her phone, golden lamplight casting the only glow. I zoomed in on her screen, which from my position I had a remarkably good view of, and watched her scroll through news headlines before falling asleep.

I watched with attention long after she was sleeping, feeling every part the stalker I’d become. I snapped another picture, hoping I’d never need to use these photos. Hoping they’d never see the light of day, wishing I could burn them along with all the other evidence that may implicate her in his crimes.

Chapter 7

The First Sunday

He’s gone.

That was my first thought when I opened my eyes the next morning.

I rolled over in bed, my eyes not even adjusted before I could sense the lack of his presence. Tav’s energy ate up the room. Even while he slept.

Sunshine streaked across the duvet as I pulled myself out of bed. Tav’s shoes were gone — he always tucked them neatly under his side of the bed. I brushed my teeth, quickly straightened my hair, then wrapped myself in a robe and went downstairs.

The first thing I noticed when I reached the kitchen was Tav’s missing laptop. If he’d only gone for a quick morning hike, why would he have taken his laptop? My eyes searched the room and I registered that his backpack and duffel, normally sitting at the door, were also missing.

I went to the front door, opening it quickly. A burst of chilly air washed over my skin. The sun glinted off the snow-capped mountains in the distance, and Tav’s footprints tracked down the path and out of the driveway. Or at least where the driveway would be under the massive snow drifts. The nights had been below freezing, which left a stiff crust on top of the snow. Tav’s prints sunk only a few inches into the top layer.

I frowned, hugging my arms around my waist as I took in the vast isolation around me. What would it be like without Tav here? I didn’t think I’d be able to handle all of the solitude without driving myself insane. It’s funny, it only took him being gone a few minutes for me to miss him.

I was about to head back inside and get dressed to follow his footprints down the driveway, when I spotted the top of his head coming over the horizon. I smiled, eager to talk to him. He looked up then, frustration clear on his face. I waved happily, and his frown turned up a little and he waved back. I waited for him at the top of the steps, and when he was close enough I said, “How was your morning hike?”

“Worse than I anticipated.” He paused at the bottom step, squinting into the sunshine. “We’re snowed in.”

“Well, we already knew that, didn’t we?”

He shook his head. “The car is buried under snow, I couldn’t even make out the top — a snowdrift covered it completely.”

I swallowed, the growing tension tightening my throat.

“And the bridge is out.”

“Out?” Fear rippled through me.

“Ice snapped one of the suspension cables. They’ve closed it until the ice melts and it’s safe enough for crews to assess the damage.”

“How long will that take?”

“As long as it takes.” Tav clamped down on his bottom lip. “There’s more snow and ice coming tonight. I checked for service as I hiked, even tried to find any open networks or satellite connections. We’re in a dead zone.”

“A dead zone.” I repeated his words, truly afraid for the first time since we’d been here. “What does that mean?”

“It means,” he hissed, “we’re at the mercy of nature.” He passed me on his way into the house. “And each other.”

“Why didn’t you wake me up to go with you?”

He wasn’t paying attention, only began unhooking his backpack and rifling through it for his laptop. “Couldn’t sleep, wanted to get a jump-start on daylight. I guess that project action report will have to wait until later.”

“Project action report for what?”

“Dad has me working on a new arm of the foundation.”

He’d spoken of his father’s foundation a few times in the last year, and it seemed connected to why he’d been so stressed lately. “I can help you with anything, just tell me what to do.”

“Maybe it’s time to start chopping wood.”

“But you said the generator—”

“Everything has changed now. I don’t even know how much food is in this house.”

“The pantry is full, but I can organize it today and we can work on rations. Did the weather station say how long this Arctic clipper is going to last?”

“Frey — we’re in the mountains. We might be waiting ’til spring.”

He went back to rearranging his backpack. I lingered near the pantry door pretending to check labels, though really my mind was on him. Why had he taken both of his bags with both of his pairs of shoes and hiking boots and all of his clothes? Would he have left me if he had the chance?

He’d said himself we were at the mercy of each other now.

“I was thinking one of us should hike out of here.”

And there it was. His confession. He had tried to leave me alone up here, that’s why he’d left in the early hours. Not to get a jump-start on the daylight like he’d said, but to abandon me.

Chapter 8

From the loft windows I could see everything.

Tav worked chopping wood in a small clearing where he’d packed down the snow at the edge of the woods. He’d found a small handsaw in the utility room of the basement, along with a food storage pantry with bags of rice and canned goods. We now had twelve cases of canned tuna fish and ten gallons of purified water. The electricity and water still worked, thank God. But if that changed we would need to severely ration even that to conserve the generator power.

Tav swung his axe, destroying another medium-sized evergreen limb. He pointed out the generator to me as it hummed in the backyard. I didn’t think we needed chopped wood. I sensed instead that he was taking out his aggression on it more than anything. He’d always been a doer — while I worried myself into a prescription for anxiety medication, he shot into action.

It was one of the things I loved most about him. So competent and willing to tackle any project that came his way.

I’d probably been paranoid to think he was trying to leave me this morning. He’d had trouble sleeping last night, falling into bed long after I’d fallen asleep, and I’d been aware of his relentless tossing and turning after that.

Whatever his father had tasked him with at the foundation was important, and Tav was always so capable and balanced when it came to his contracts. He never spoke in detail, but I could see the fire in his eyes when he spoke of work — he loved solving puzzles and was a good fit from the start. But the last few months he’d taken to hiding behind his laptop, working on projects for the foundation his father had created. When Tav had first told me of the foundation, he’d explained that they needed a charitable committee to review grant requests and action projects. I didn’t know what much of that meant, but it sounded great. And it also seemed to have Tav breaking under the pressure. I made a mental note to search the internet the next time I had service to look for any press releases related to the new foundation. Tav’s father was constantly busy and always putting pressure on his son to work harder. I knew Tav wanted to make his father proud, but I often wondered to what end.

I was probably being too hard on him. He worked so hard all week long and spoiled me even when he wasn’t there. Bags of organic fruit and vegetables from the local market showed up randomly throughout the week. On the nights he knew I was working late on a project, he often sent my favorite takeout to surprise me and to make sure I ate. He was thoughtful, so thoughtful.

Maybe the isolation of this place was already getting to me. So much big nature that required raw survival right outside the window left me feeling like I had a case of vertigo. Maybe my mind was also out of step because I’d missed a few of my doses over the last few days. That was another reason Tav liked me at home and settled safely, any small upheaval of my daily routine often left my medications — and thinking — haywire. Fluctuating moods were often the result.

Tav and I developed a sort of silent lingo when this happened. Without saying anything, he’d often leave my prescription bottle by the nightstand with a glass of sparkling water. He took care of me. He watched out for me when I couldn’t. I’d never felt safer.

Tav had been there too when the call came in. As her next of kin, when my mother’s body was found, I was the first they’d called. A wave of devastation had swept through me. It stole the air from my lungs and the energy from my muscles. I’d crumbled to the floor and left the Monterey police chief hanging on the other line, while Tav held me close to him and I wept.

My mother was dead.

An accident, they said.

And in one brief moment I lost my entire life. Tav put me back together when I didn’t think anything could. Tav and a mild antipsychotic kept me from slipping out of reality. When Tav wasn’t around, I fell so deep into myself it took days to climb out.

That’s when Tav had started to keep tabs on me.

I never did anything to harm myself, but sometimes I think he worried that might change. He began to chat with me often throughout the day while we worked three-hundred miles apart with only our laptop screens to connect us. I liked the company, even if it was virtual. We found a way to keep things interesting, if not spicy, via text messages or late-night phone calls. He made me feel taken care of, even then. When I went to therapy, it was like having him with me — during all of my appointments he’d call in for three-way sessions. And by the time he came home on Thursday or Friday night, it was like we were brand new all over again.

Work had kept my mind afloat that year as I mourned the loss of my mom. I’d spiraled the first few days. When the local news caught wind of my mother’s passing, the probing voicemails had started. My mother had the bleeding heart of an activist, and when she moved to Monterey she started a charity for the arts that brought awareness to mental health and women’s issues. She’d become so active over the years, she’d made a few enemies — mostly from political groups that made a villain of her for her hot-button human rights debates, but my mom never said much about it to me. She laughed once when she said a local reporter was on her for a hit piece about something from a long time ago when she was younger and even more vocal. She was always at the head of a picket line or protest with her braids and bell-bottoms. Women like her collected friends and enemies. And she seemed to like it that way.

She’s why I shied away from politics, because she had it at the forefront of her mind even when I was a child. My mother’s style of punishment wasn’t standing in the corner, her punishment was reading the Wall Street Journal from the first to the last page and then choosing one article that she and I could discuss over dinner. She made me whip smart, and averse to anything that polarized people.

I liked the safe world behind my computer screen as chaos erupted outside my window. My mother was an activist at heart, and I was a hermit. That’s why losing her had devastated me all the more. I hadn’t even been to see her in California. The last time I’d felt her hug was when she’d left me with dreams of adventure in her mind.

I felt like I’d failed her by not coming too, or not taking a bigger role in her life out west. So much of what made her her was her passionate tirades, but I’d grown up with them and could only hear so much.

When the newspapers began to call and ask for statements and interviews from Reina Fremont’s only daughter, I’d caved in on myself.

I cut another tie with that life when I switched my phone number, but when special interest groups and activists that opposed her ideals began calling and leaving nasty messages about her burning in Hell, I’d had no choice.

Tav bought me a new phone in his name the very next morning.

I’d been forced into a brutal form of survival that didn’t allow for mourning and grief. I was tagged in posts online by anonymous users that claimed my mother was drunk driving and having affairs with well-connected men and a fraud in every way they could think of. They were all lies. My mother’s only goal in life was to help women overcome the demons they carried as they healed and became independent. Her life was exactly as she wanted it, until she ceased to exist.

Tav was my hero every step of the way, making arrangements so we could have a small ceremony in my hometown before sending her ashes into the wind and then driving me to my therapy appointment so I could sob for two hours about losing the only person that ever really loved me. It felt pathetic, and I was embarrassed even then that I’d shown him that raw side of me, but I had no one else. I was truly alone.

Within weeks of my mother’s passing, Tav began to talk more about when we would get married. Where we might live, the kids we’d have and the vacations we’d take. I think he did it to cheer me up, but it left me drowning in more depression. She wouldn’t be there to walk me down the aisle like I’d planned, she’d never meet her grandkids.

I loved him more than ever and I wanted to marry him less and less every day.

I was sinking. My nerves on edge, my love for him a lie.

Chapter 9

“I chopped ten bundles worth of wood and it’s probably not even enough to cook us a dinner.” Tav came into the house, swiping at the snow accumulated in his hair.

He looked angelic if not for the way he grunted his words.

He was agitated. I felt horrible that I hadn’t done anything more than clean the house and organize the pantry.

“Do you need help? Can I draw you a bath?”

“Drawing a bath,” came the voice of the smart house.

“You turned her back on?”

Tav nodded. “Weather station is reporting mass outages for the next week or ten days for most of the Northeast. Turned on the broadcast radio too and heard a few old guys talking about the bridge shutdown this morning. I tried to radio them back but no answer.”

A shiver went through me at the thought of other people trapped on this mountain with us. “How close do you think they are to us?”

Tav shrugged. “Within a few miles. Depending on their vantage point they might be able to see us even though we can’t see them. Though I saw a plume of smoke coming out of the valley when I was walking to the car earlier, maybe it was one of them.”

“People live year-round up here by choice?”

Tav went back to work on his laptop. “I’m still trying to hack into the home system. As long as I’m still getting weather station updates, there’s a way. Every system is hackable, I just have to reverse engineer the set-up in my mind and look for the loophole. There’s always a loophole, intentional or not.”

“You’re determined,” I commented, hanging his damp jacket on a hook above the fireplace. “Just one of the things I love about you.”

I moved behind him, encircling his waist with my arms and hugging him.

He stiffened awkwardly, turning and tossing an arm around my neck and placing a kiss at the crown of my head. I hid my cringe, wondering if love should feel so much like pretending. I wondered if that meant we were at the beginning of the end.

“Sorry I’ve been distracted. I’m at the end of my rope with this foundation and my regular workload. It’d be too much if I knew it wasn’t ending soon.”

“You haven’t told me much about it, are you any closer to accepting grant submissions?”

He shook his head, eyes averted to his screen again. I tried to chance a glance, but he kept the screen lit at such a low setting with a black color scheme and gray text, I couldn’t make anything out.

“The most important thing is that I can hand it off to a manager and get back to my real life, my old life. You and me and our future.” He planted another kiss on my head and then unhooked me from his embrace. “Maybe then we can take a real vacation. Tahiti or Fiji, whatever you want.”

I didn’t reply. I didn’t think he’d meant me to.

“Maybe we can even set a date,” he muttered.

I ahemed as I walked away, already climbing the stairs to the solitude of the loft. We’d only been locked up together for four days, was it normal that it felt like four lifetimes already? Suddenly, hiking to the nearest trapper’s cabin in the woods sounded half inviting. I smirked to myself, imagining throwing my middle finger in the air and walking off into the sunset just for the adventure.

I’d survive about three and a half minutes before falling to my death in a crevice before wolves descended on my remains. You’d have to pay me to leave this house, I realized. I’d need to be driven out before I willingly walked off down the driveway like he’d done this morning. I thought back to the trek here. The chalet to where we’d left the SUV was a mile, maybe more as it meandered through the brush and switchbacks.

I reached the master bedroom, turning off the hot water in the bath that the house had turned on automatically a few minutes ago. Then I settled into an overstuffed leather chair that perched in the corner overlooking the glacier-tipped mountains beyond. The jagged granite peaks were so unforgiving, they left me feeling on edge. This place was a weird reminder that it was every man and woman for himself and herself when it came down to all of this savage nature. It had thrilled me on the way in, but now that it was our prison, every crag and peak was ominous.

I plucked my phone off the nightstand and swiped through the messages. Empty. If I was home there would be no less than a dozen messages from Bradley by now. He was probably worried about me already.

I’d have to work to explain this one, and then listen to him tell me about the dangers of leaving the state without telling anyone.

My app finally crashed after it couldn’t connect to the internet. “If only the pamphlet would have mentioned Arctic hellhole.”

I would wither and die up here if the only person I had left to talk to was Tav from behind his computer screen.

I remembered how charming he was the first night we’d met. And then our first date a few nights later when we’d gone for a barbecue and danced to cheesy pop music from the 1980s. Tav sang Billy Joel in my ear when his fingers slipped under the hem of my shirt and his fingertips caressed my skin for the first time.

He’d had me from that moment. That tiny gesture had cemented his hold on my heart.

I remembered the last time I’d seen Steph. I’d driven into the city for her latest gallery opening. We’d caught up after months of only phone conversations, she’d asked how I was handling my mother’s passing, and I’d beamed with manufactured pride that accidents happened — Tav and I were talking about getting married. She’d frowned with concern.

“Don’t do it.”

“Don’t what? Marry Tav?”

“He gives me the creeps, Frey. I don’t know why, but trust me when I say there’s something off about him.”

“Tav and I are great. I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

She watched me calmly before looking away. “He just gives me a sense, Frey. I’m never wrong about men like that.”

Men like that.

I still rolled her words around in my mind all these months later. I’d never worked up the bravery to ask her, but now when we talked it always sat on the tip of my tongue. That same night, I’d driven all the way home and was shocked to find Tav sitting in the dark of our bungalow after midnight.

He’d seemed on edge, worried about where I was and with who.

When I’d told him I was at Steph’s opening, it seemed to make matters worse, not better.

“You should have told me you were going into the city, I would have taken the night off and met you there.”

“I needed girl time.”

“What does that mean, exactly? She was working, wasn’t she?”

“Sure, but we talk and catch up. It’s not the same seeing her face only over a screen.”

“Well, what’s to catch up on? Who she’s dating and hating?”

“No,” I suppressed an eye roll.

“Steph doesn’t like me,” Tav grouched.

Also true.

“Sure she does,” I lied.

“She shoots daggers at me every time we’re in the same room together.”

“She doesn’t even pay attention to you,” I replied. Also not true, she thought Bradley was more my type.

Tav didn’t answer, only assessed me shrewdly. “Did she tell you I saw her out at dinner a few weeks ago?”

She had.

“No,” I lied again.

Let him hang himself, I thought. If he has a reason to, I’ll know it.

“I don’t believe you.”

I didn’t reply, but I held his gaze like we were in a sharpshooter standoff in the middle of our kitchen. Say it. Say it. Confess now and I can stop living in this constant state of is he or isn’t he? Steph had me questioning Tav’s fidelity from the moment she found out Tav was working all week in the city.

I hadn’t been able to shake it since.

“Girls like Steph have issues with men. I wouldn’t take her advice if you paid me,” he uttered, then turned and walked out of the kitchen. I watched the broad stretch of his muscular back beneath his workout tank. I loved him, I think. But how could I know for sure?

Was Tav really the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with?

Chapter 10

Tav was on edge all day.

Monday. We should have been back at home. Back at work. Back to our regularly scheduled lives.

It made me laugh to myself now, the thought of Tav walking out of the door this morning as if he was heading out to work, leaving me here as his happy little housewife. As much as I was a homebody, a homemaker I was not. Did I want kids with Tav? Maybe someday, but not as long as he worked in the city all week with only weekend visits. Tav was obsessed with moving up the career ladder; he often said he worked hard now so he could work less later. I didn’t complain, because he took care of me. But if I was suddenly left to raise a baby alone like my mother, I’d suffocate under the pressure.

My mother earned a degree in psychology and worked full-time, sometimes two jobs, to keep a roof over my head. She rarely dated and talked about her relationships with men even less. She kept her life private then, and it grew more so when a thousand miles separated us.

The idea of raising a baby without her made my chest ache. I placed a palm over my heart as I watched Tav shoveling in the evening light that split through the mountains.

He’d been working outside most of the day, I didn’t ask at what. I sensed he was working out his worry with tasks, while I just worried. I spent part of the afternoon stewing the last of the fresh tomatoes into pasta sauce that could be kept in jars for at least a few weeks.

Not that we would be here that long.

A soft bang made me jump and my eyes darted to the porch. Tav was banging a snow shovel against the steps as he chipped thick pieces of ice away. I frowned, wondering why he was working so hard when I was sure I’d seen a bag of salt in the basement specifically for melting ice on the pathways.

I was about to tell him this when the door swung open and a burst of cold air swept through the chalet.

“There’s a bag of ice melt downstairs we can use for the steps.”

“Why didn’t you bring it up then?” The bite in his words stung.

“I-I’m sorry, I will.” Before he could say anything else, I retreated down the hallway and descended the stairs that led to the basement. Right at the base of the steps was a small utility closet. I opened the door, eyes on the brightly colored bag. I bent and yanked, realizing now it was a lot heavier than I thought. I yanked again. Finally it slid across the cement floor, a tower of boxes with filters and other junk falling at my feet. I bent, sweeping everything back into the box with my hands and then wiping the dust off on my pant legs. I felt grimy already. Whoever had been in this closet last was probably long dead, judging by the thick caking of dirt and grime. I yanked the bag again, realizing there was no way I could carry it up the stairs. I’d have to march back up there and tell Tav he’d need to get it himself. A smile twitched my lips as I thought of the small satisfaction that would give me. But the dark look that would inevitably cross his eyes wasn’t worth it.

I stood, kicking the bag of salt with my shoe when something hiding in the darkness of the closet clattered and then fell forward.

I gasped, bending to lift the business end of a very powerful assault rifle. I’d never been in the presence of a gun in my life, my mom was too make love not war for that, but even my meager firearm knowledge told me this was a semi-automatic rifle with a long barrel and a large scope. It looked exactly like the guns I’d seen used in sniper movies. And it looked clean, if not freshly polished and gleaming with oil. This gun looked like it had never been shot. What was it doing here among all this dust and grime?

I slammed my eyelids shut as I tried to recall if Tav had ever mentioned firing a gun. Maybe he’d had to go to the gun range for his job with the department? But then, why wouldn’t he have mentioned that? Steph had me so obsessed with proving Tav’s infidelity, maybe I’d overlooked something more.

From the beginning Tav had refused to tell me much about his current contract, and I’d never cared enough to ask questions. All of his work was behind a computer screen when he was with me, but did his daily life at the office look vastly different all week long?

I scoffed at myself, shaking my head as I realized the simple explanation was probably more like the owner of the house left the gun here for emergencies.

Like what?

“Hey!” I called up the stairs, the barrel of the gun wrapped in my hand as I climbed. “Did you know there was a gun in the house?”

Tav surprised me, standing right out of sight at the doorway. He narrowed his eyes to the gun in my hand before responding. “We’re in the wilderness, it would be weird if there wasn’t a gun.”

He took it from my hand, not looking the least bit surprised that I’d found it, before propping it in the corner of the hallway and kitchen.

“Do you think it’s loaded?”

Tav was already stalking away, shoulders bunched and tense.

I should give him a massage like I used to when we first started dating.

Instead, I followed him, dwarfed in his shadow as he stepped into the bright kitchen light.

“Have you ever shot a gun like that?”

He only grunted.

Evasive bastard.

Steph had been right about men like him, how hadn’t I seen it before? Secrets simmered behind the twinkle in his denim-blue eyes.

“Have you?” I pressed.

“No.”

“You seem comfortable with it,” I commented casually.

Tav took an unopened bottle of vodka down from the cupboard and twisted it open. “Compared to you.”

“Have you taken classes?”

“Classes?” His tone was demeaning, I could hear it from across the granite island.

“You know — at a gun range, with targets.”

“Sure, I’ve been to a gun range with the guys a few times.”

“The guys?” This was the first time he’d mentioned hanging out with any guys. It was always work meetings, work dinners, work acquaintances.

“From work.”

“Right,” I said. “Work.”

“What are we really talking about here?” Suddenly he was in my face, his breath hot on my neck. What once turned me on now struck a chord of fear in my heart.

“Work. Guns. Lies,” I said in a jumble.

His fingers tightened around my wrist. In that moment I realized he was more powerful than me, so powerful he could snap the bones in my wrist and leave me abandoned for dead on this godforsaken mountain. “Whose lies?”

I felt every beat of his heart like it was connected to mine. My vision turned dark, my breaths shallow. I suddenly felt faint, overwhelmed with not knowing if he was my knight in shining armor or my deranged captor.

“Freya.” His thick voice grounded me in reality. “Freya, have you been taking your meds?”

I hated when he asked that.

I shook my head, heart still beating against my eardrums as Tav cradled me to his chest, more tender than he was only a moment ago. His eyes turned from chilly to warm, handling me like I was a delicate bird as he guided me across the kitchen and laid me down on the leather sectional.

“I’ll get some water.” His words were calm and measured. He knew how to handle me when paranoia stole my reality.

I gulped the water he handed to me. He watched me intently. “When’s the last time you took your pills?”

“Not since we’ve been here.”

“Freya!” I shrank from the power in his voice.

“I keep forgetting.”

“Forgetting? This is why I can’t leave you alone.” What was he talking about? He leaves me alone all the time. “Where are they?” he hissed.

“Upstairs in my make-up bag in the bathroom. I haven’t been wearing make-up since we got here so I just never thought about it.”

He grunted his displeasure as he jogged up the stairs to the loft. He was back down a moment later, my make-up bag in one hand, my small bottle of prescription antipsychotics in the other.

I didn’t need them.

I knew I didn’t need them.

But I was too afraid of the darkness that would descend if I stopped taking them. I’d tried a few times before, but the level of despair that seeped out of my bones was unbearable.

“Why are you doing this again?” He held one small white pill out to me.

I took it, washing it down with the water.

“I don’t want to be on them for the rest of my life.”

I could tell he didn’t want to talk about this again, but he sat down on the edge of the sofa anyway. “Do you think the new therapist is helping? You seem to like her.”

I shrugged. “Same as ever, she just keeps telling me to take my time grieving.”

He nodded. “It was a tragic accident. They happen to people all around the world every day.”

“I know. I just can’t shake that she was so far away. I feel like she probably hated me as she lay dying, thinking about how awful I was for not visiting for three years.”

“This again.” He sighed. “You know she wouldn’t hate you.”

“Maybe. You never met her. I wish we would have gone for just one visit.”

“Me too.” His hand cupped my knee. I suppressed an awkward shudder, not because I didn’t like his hand on me, but that it was so unusual. When had we gotten to a place where we stopped touching each other? “You probably just need some rest. This hasn’t exactly been paradise. I’m going to demand my money back.”

“Didn’t you say the department owns this? I thought it was free.”

“They do, but it’s my position at the foundation that landed us this. I was kidding anyway.” He stood, patting my knee twice before heading back to the kitchen. “You take it easy. An early bedtime tonight wouldn’t hurt either of us. I’m going to grab that bag of ice melt and throw some on the porch and then I’ll be back to get you whatever you need.”

His footsteps padded away as I trained my eyes on the distant mountain peaks overlooking our chalet. It felt silly to spend time sleeping when even the dead of night was beautiful and brightly lit by the moonlight reflecting off the snow.

Tav was right though, I felt exhausted down to my bones. Maybe a bubble bath and a little champagne would help relax me enough into sleep. I grinned as I thought of instructing the house to draw me a bath, on purpose this time.

A succession of soft thuds rattled me from my bedtime daydream.

“Tav?” I called, eyes on the hallway.

Silence, before his pained voice called from the depths of the house. “Frey — I think I broke my ankle!”

Shit.

Fear struck like lightning in my veins. My heart hammered as I was about to press myself off the couch to help him when I registered one small but not irrelevant detail.

The gun was gone.

Chapter 11

Frustrating numbness worked its way through my muscles just like it always did when I took my pills. Just one of the reasons I hated them. It made life feel like I was viewing reality through thick soup. My senses felt dulled, my vision tunneled and watery. The pills did a number on my motor skills; if I took them too late in the day I swear I could almost feel their presence running slowly through my veins the next morning as I tried to work at the keyboard.

Tav didn’t realize how much I’d skipped my pills over the last few months for this reason. I felt more clear-headed, but also more on edge. Like my life was in a blender and it had only just slowed down as I stumbled out blind into the sunshine.

I made my way slowly across the big living room, pausing where the hallway met the kitchen and where Tav had set the gun when he’d taken it from my hands minutes ago.

“Freya?!”

“Coming!” I called, clamping down on my bottom lip as I imagined him hiding out down there, gun drawn and waiting for me to enter the depths of his Hell.

Or was this my Hell? I had to be conjuring this insanity. Tav got under my skin some days, but that didn’t make him a deranged, wannabe murderer. I cursed myself inwardly for taking that pill and leaving my mind murkier than it had been only moments ago.

Had Tav packed the gun in the back of the car when I wasn’t paying attention? Or was it always there, tucked under a seat while I was none the wiser.

“Can you walk?” I called down the stairs, trying to get a read on him.

“No!” I heard the scrape of metal on cement and a grunt.

Shit.

I took the steps two at a time, holding tightly onto the railing as I did.

I reached the basement. Darkness shrouded everything.

“Tav?”

“Over here,” he called from a corner.

“What were you doing over there?” I cast my eyes on the bag of ice melt. Maybe that’s what he’d tripped over.

But where was the gun?

“I can’t believe they haven’t been sued for that last step. Everyone must trip over it.” Tav was clinging to my shoulders a moment later, leaning heavily on me with one hand and using his other to help keep him steady.

“Probably pretty hard to sue the department. Have you been working out?” He was bulkier than the last time I’d felt the full weight of him against me.

“I’m bored without you in the city. Instead of missing you, I go to the gym.”

I wondered whether that was a compliment or a lie or both. “It’s paying off.”

He didn’t answer me.

We reached the top of the stairs. He paused, holding the door jamb as he winced.

“Do you want an ice pack?”

He shook his head, walking along the kitchen counter and putting as little pressure on his foot as he could. He slumped onto a kitchen bar-stool. “The snow is starting again. I should have walked to that cabin in the valley when I had the chance.”

He opened his laptop, almost talking to himself before the black screen shifted to lines of pale gray text. I tried to focus on the lines, but the font was so tiny it blurred together. I didn’t know exactly what he’d been up to behind his screen over the last few days. He always put me off by commenting that the internet wasn’t available, but from that perspective, he seemed logged into the work chat platform. Didn’t that require a connection?

“Is there an instruction manual for this place? All the smart systems must come with a user manual, right?”

“Dunno,” he answered.

I frowned, trying to zero in on the messages on his screen.

Each of the lines began with a numeric username, with some of the lines of text in computer lingo that was unfamiliar to me. I scanned the screen, noticing another minimized window that was blinking with a new message alert from someone named V.

Who is V?

“Have you talked to your dad since we arrived?”

“How could I?” came Tav’s answer.

“You’re logged into the work server.”

Tav’s head whipped to the side, eyes narrowing. “Only enough to load the old messages. I can’t send.”

“Hm.” I moved around the island, putting distance between us.

“Hm, what? You don’t believe me?” He stood.

He put more pressure on his foot than when we’d hobbled up the stairs. I registered the butcher’s block on the counter, a high-end stainless knife set only inches away.

“What do you think I’m hiding?” He was limping around the island now, following the path I’d taken as he tracked my steps. “Maybe you’re the one with secrets. No cell messages driving you insane? Is there someone you’d rather be talking to?”

Maybe.

The words stung. We’d been locked up for less than a week and already I was growing cagey.

Or was he the cagey one?

I took in a lungful of air. “No. You?”

Who is V?

He arched one perfect eyebrow and then spun, limping across the kitchen and into the dining room. “I’m going crazy here.”

“It’s hard not to, maybe that’s the point of this place. I’ve never felt so watched and so alone at the same time.”

Tav replied with another caveman grunt.

He dug through one of the duffle bags in the corner, pulling out a small bottle of pills and shaking one into his palm before shoving the bottle into his pocket. He tossed the tiny pill into his mouth, then poured a crystal glass of vodka and took a shot to swallow it down. He filled his glass with another three fingers of the liquor and drank again.

“We have to get out of here.”

“Even if it kills us?” The words were out before I could stop them.

Tav’s eyes slashed across the room to meet mine. A chill rattled through me as his gaze lingered. “What am I supposed to say?”

I didn’t answer him.

“You all but accused me of bringing a gun up here.”

“I didn’t accuse you!” Had I? The memory of the words I’d used was murky.

“Bullshit,” he hissed, eyes cutting back to the vodka. He poured three more fingers of the clear liquid and then slumped into the kitchen chair. He pulled his bad leg up on the chair next to him. “I think it’s just a sprain.”

Attempting to defuse the situation, I grabbed an ice pack from the freezer and passed it to him. “Then you really should ice it.” He took the pack, laying it across his ankle.

“Don’t ask me to ever go to the mountains again.” His words hung thick in the air, swirling around us and bubbling with tension.

“I didn’t ask.”

“Sure you did. Your birthday last year, you said you’d always wanted to see the mountains.”

“That’s why you did this?”

He huffed. Took another shot. Eyes glaring out the window.

“Why I did this. You’re unbelievable. I make all of your dreams come true and then you discover you have different dreams.”

Anger simmered through me. “Why are you saying this now? There’s a blizzard outside the window, we couldn’t get off this stupid mountain if we tried.”

“There’s got to be another way. This bay is packed with islands, maybe there’s another bridge or—”

“Are you going to walk off this mountain? I almost fell into a crevice yesterday!”

“I heard snowmobiles when I walked to the car.” His eyes were trained on a point across the mountain peaks in the distance. “The hike only took me a few hours with snowdrifts. I found a pile of skis, that’s what I was searching for in the basement.”

“Y-you’re going to leave?” Terror thudded through my heart.

“Do you know how to ski?” Tav’s eyes trained on mine.

I shook my head.

“I do. My family spent every Christmas in Telluride when I was a kid.”

“S-so you’ve just decided then?” Tears welled in my eyes.

Tav shrugged. “What other option is there?”

“We can’t just wait it out?”

“There’s not enough food, you saw the pantry. If we both stay, we’ll be rationing rice by next week. It’s safer for you. I just have to get to a phone and Dad can send a helicopter. I should be able to get off this mountain in less than two days, even if I have to ski clear around the base. Maybe there are patrol boats out in the bay, I can flag one down with a flare.”

The thought of being all alone up here struck fear in my bones.

“I can’t stay up here.”

“Why not?” He shot up from the chair. “You have everything you need, every modern convenience at your fingertips.”

“Except communication.”

“You hardly communicate all week, all it is is business and contracts. I thought that’s why you wanted the break on the top of a fucking mountain.”

I cringed. Tav rarely swore.

And what was worse? He was right.

“Tav—”

He held up his hand, his jaw grinding as he turned back to the frost-patterned window. “We’ll die here if we stay together.”

Chapter 12

Tav never met my family.

The thoughts chugged on repeat as I watched him strap his bad ankle into a ski boot.

“They fit!” He hauled himself off the porch step and then shoved and clicked his first boot onto the ski. Next came the second foot — his bad foot. It clicked into place. He grinned as he clutched the ski poles in hand and then took off down the driveway.

He had perfect form, at least as far as I could tell.

I’d never been skiing, he would know that if he’d met my mother. Our worlds were so different, his childhood idyllic and mine chaotic.

What else had Tav never mentioned about his life?

He stopped in front of me now, a thousand-watt smile on his face. “Did you see that?”

I nodded. “You look great.”

“It’s easier to ski than walk on this ankle. I can hardly feel it. The tight ski boot will help with the swelling too.”

I nodded again.

At some point overnight my fear had shifted to anger. I couldn’t do anything to prevent him from leaving, but I wanted to.

“Are you going to check that cabin in the valley first?”

Tav swiped the backpack full of supplies he’d packed last night and heaved it over his shoulders. “Car first, maybe I’ll luck out and the bridge will be open.”

“You think?” My eyes fell on the fresh powdery snow that had fallen all night.

“Maybe I can get the satellite phone to work.”

“Okay.”

“It won’t take me more than a few days.” He paused to look at me then. “I’ve got enough beef jerky to last me a month in this pack, you’ll be home in your bed before then.”

“Our bed,” I mused, missing home.

“You’re strong, Frey — you can do this.”

Do what, exactly? Survive?

“You remember how to tune the weather radio?”

“It won’t do me any good if I can’t call out to report an emergency,” I breathed.

“The satellite phone isn’t working, I don’t know what else to do.”

“Then why are you taking the phone if it doesn’t work? And your laptop?”

“Jesus, we talked about this. Maybe it’s this peak, maybe we’re obstructed by cloud cover. Maybe I don’t know, but I do know leaving it does neither of us any good. If I can get to another peak or position on the island I might be able to call out of here. Dammit, Freya, when did you stop trusting me?”

I let his words hang.

His eyes were glossy with the cold before he pushed down his polarized lenses and hid his gaze from me.

I miss him already.

He leaned close, lips pausing at my earlobe. “The lawn guy, Frey? Aren’t we both better than that?” His words froze me cold. “Be safe.”

I watched as he skied down the driveway we’d hiked up just days ago.

Had I heard him right? The lawn guy.

Bradley.

He meant Bradley.

Was Bradley a target, or was my mind playing tricks on me again?

Tav disappeared over the slope, the breadth of his frame growing smaller the further he skied away from me. It was then I realized the space between us had already turned frigid.

“Doors locked.”

Chapter 13

I still hate Sundays.

I traced a fingertip along the edge of the digital photo that peered back from my computer screen later that night. A shot taken when I was around ten of my beautiful mother and the only man I remember her dating, his arm around both of us as we stood outside my Sunday school doors. I never remembered her dating, she kept her personal life to herself most of my growing-up years. Except when it came to this one. Chuck. The one that got away. They’d gone to high school together and caught up when they could between his business trips. She cried crocodile tears over his leaving for months.

There was a time I thought good old Chuck was my dad and they were keeping the secret from me, but when I finally asked, Mom laughed me off wistfully and said life would have been easier if he had been. Whenever he came to town he brought flowers for Mom, a stuffed animal for me, and always took us out for dinner after church. Mom wasn’t normally the church-attending type, but with Chuck she was. And she never forced me to go to Sunday school when it was just the two of us, only when Chuck was in town.

I still hate Sundays.

I crossed my legs and leaned back into the leather sectional, fat snowflakes falling from the sky. Tav had been gone eight hours. Eight hours since he’d skied off into the sunrise. As soon as he was gone, I curled up at the picture window and lifted my head from my laptop every two and a half minutes expecting him to be right back.

The sun was setting now, and I’d been walking down memory lane for most of the day as I organized the old photos on my laptop. I’d considered strapping myself to a pair of skis and practicing around the driveway, but breaking every limb in my body didn’t seem like the logical next step. I’d turned then to organizing my work files, then catching up on the spreadsheet of my expenses, before finally turning to personal items.

I paused on another old photo taken the same day of me and Bradley after church. We swung side by side on the swing set with bright smiles on our faces. He was my bright spot then, on Sundays and at public school in our small town. He was a year older than me, and when he’d quit school at seventeen to join the military, it had taken the air out of my lungs. The only worse blow was when Mom announced she was moving across the country a few years later.

Bradley and I lost touch. Mom and I lost touch. And then came Tav.

Just then the alarm system beeped twice and sent me spiraling off the couch. I caught my laptop before it crashed to the floor as another series of beeps sounded throughout the house.

“What is going on?”

I went to the smart screen that controlled the house. I brought the normally black screen to life, surprised to find a red dot blinking in the corner.

“Doors locked,” the house speaker announced as I tapped the screen.

I jiggled the door-knob, anxiety rushing through me as I realized the doors really were locked. I scrambled to remember if Tav had mentioned a hidden key or code to unlock the doors. As far as I’d known, it only took a quick tap on the screen to unlock the doors and windows, but now that option had been removed from its usual place on the menu.

Was I really locked in the chalet? Had Tav locked me in, no chance for escape?

“How do I fix you?” I said, searching the touchscreen for another settings menu. I tapped at different corners, then asked to see the weather forecast just to see if it would work.

The screen blinked a low battery indicator on the screen.

“Low battery? Where am I supposed to find batteries?”

“Spare batteries are in the control panel. Spare batteries are in the control panel.”

I frowned, realizing the system knew more than I did about this place. “Thanks, I guess.”

“You are welcome,” the system chimed.

“Ugh, so friendly. Don’t you know we’re in the middle of a snowpocalypse? I could use a little more horror and doom in your voice to reflect the current state of my affairs.”

“Noted.”

A wry laugh split my lips as I realized this house probably knew more about me than I did. From the moment I’d walked into this luxury chalet it had felt like someone was watching. I’d chalked the feeling up to all the smart-house features, but now . . . I wasn’t so sure.

Was the artificial intelligence smart enough to learn my habits? Or was there a human behind the screen monitoring all of my steps? Or even worse . . . was I going crazy? Was the isolation and loneliness taking root in my mind already?

I went to the pantry where I remembered seeing a mounted control panel, hoping it was the one she was referring to. When I opened it, I found rows and rows of plugs, each labeled, along with another small touchscreen mounted in the corner. I tapped it once and it came to life with the SmartSystem logo I’d seen in the top corner of the main screen. A tiny dot blinked next to what looked like a small battery compartment. I opened it with my nail easily, and a tiny row of batteries lined the edge beside a separate row of electronic computer chips.

“This place is so creepy.” I popped one of the small flat batteries out and cupped it in my palm before heading back to the main control panel.

I popped the fresh batteries into the system easily, then tapped at the settings again in search of an unlock symbol. With every failed attempt to unlock the door, adrenaline began to spike in my system.

I gave up on the screen and worked at the door-knob again, but it refused to give. I moved to the windows in search of handles to open them, but the floor-to-ceiling panes of glass were installed to maximize the view, not the breeze. There was no way to open the living room windows, so I moved to the kitchen and tried the smaller double-hung panes near the dining table. While these two had handles, they refused to budge.

The house was locked tight.

“Unlock the doors,” I demanded.

“Unable to disengage locks.”

“Disengage locks!” A shrill tone was creeping into my voice. “Please, disengage locks!”

“Unable to disengage locks.” A rush of fear jolted me as I searched the corners of the window frames for cameras or sensors. Surely, there was a manual way to open the windows.

Music pulsed through the house then, the speakers set to their loudest setting. I covered my ears, the shrill notes of “Highway to Hell” flooding my eardrums.

“Turn off the music!”

The music blared on, the house unaware that I’d even spoken. Tears pricked my eyes as I yelled again. I yelled over and over for the music to stop, but it never did. Not until the last notes of the heavy metal song were over. Feeling the music still rattling through my mind on repeat, I began to cry uncontrollably then, my hope that I could survive in this winter palace lost.

I counted food rations in my head, wondering how many days I could really remain stuck up here without access to the outside world.

How long could my food really last? Was Tav behind this or was this simply a mistake? A glitch in the smart-house system that now might cost me my life?

I swallowed my fear, refusing to let it get the best of me as I remembered Tav wouldn’t do this. Tav loved me. We were about to be married, we were going to be parents together. But if he wasn’t crazy . . . was I?

I settled into the couch, wrapping my arms around my form to prevent the chill from settling into my bones.

A distraction. If I found a way to distract myself, maybe the system that operated the smart house would work itself out.

And if it didn’t . . . I’d need a new plan. A survival plan. Or else.

Later that night, as plumes of smoke curled like a corkscrew into the clouds against the backdrop of the navy skyline, I leaned deeper into the oversized pillows at my back. I sat with my knees perched up and back against the wall in the loft, the floor-ceiling windows unveiling the mountain range that surrounded me.

Tav was crazy to think he could ski out of our winter Hell.

He was probably dead.

Or worse, eaten alive by a wild animal or . . . local? After a short nap, I’d come to the conclusion that there was no way he’d purposefully left me up here, and I must have misheard him as he skied away, guilt weaving into my mind and lighting my thoughts on fire.

I’d started imagining breaking one of the windows with a chair or the cast iron pan in the kitchen and tracking down that mountain and into the valley to ask my nearest neighbor if they’d seen my fiancé.

Skiing was out of the question, but maybe I could find myself a sled. I grinned, imagining myself dodging evergreens all the way down the mountain on a toboggan.

I stood from my place on the floor, taking long moments to stretch. I squinted into the silver moonlight, thinking this place wouldn’t be half bad with the internet and an unlimited supply of takeout food. Maybe then I wouldn’t even mind being locked in. My life had become so simplified at home, I could take everything I needed with me to be happy. But without the internet this smart house was Hell.

I wondered if Tav went to the small cabin in the valley like he’d said he would if the car was gone.

I began to wonder if it would be safe if I tried hiking out to the car in the morning, just to see if it was there or not. But then, what if I twisted an ankle or worse? Tav had taken the only survival pack with him, and I figured if I started rationing my food now I would foreseeably have enough between the canned goods and rice to last me into spring if necessary.

Would I stay that long?

I hoped not.

But if it came down to me and this mountain, I’d go down fighting. I only hoped I wouldn’t have to figure out exactly what that meant. Growing up in flat Lancaster left me with little experience of mountain life. Mom always had us volunteering for local community projects like the volunteer dog park or after-school daycare programs. I spent almost every Christmas scooping macaroni and cheese for the kid’s line at the church potluck. My mother believed in service first, fun later. Or never.

I collapsed onto the sofa, angling my eyes to the stars hanging over the mountains.

What other surprises did Tav have about his life? And what did his family do exactly that allowed them Christmastime in a luxury ski resort every year? Based on his new brawny physique and his admission that he’d been to the gun range with the guys more than a few times, I was beginning to think he could be undercover for all I knew. Maybe the contracts with the department were a cover. But then, how did this house fit into the story?

Tav had bundled me up here thinking he was making my dreams come true, but maybe this was his dream. With his boarding school charm and the athletic cut to his jaw, he looked right at home on a set of skis. In fact, the only thing that would look more natural on him would be a tall, blonde model to match his rugged, professional-athlete good looks.

The lights in the kitchen started to flip on and off, not like the lightbulb was on the fritz, its quick flicker alerting me that it needed to be replaced, but like someone was flicking the light switch on and off methodically. Like an unseen entity, its sole purpose to drive me slowly to the brink of madness.

It was working. Between the music, the locked doors, and now the lights . . . I didn’t think I could survive another twenty-four hours, much less days.

I fell asleep imagining Tav with a sparkly Hollywood siren on his arm, double agents like Mr. and Mrs. Smith, with a football field full of secrets between them, a luxury smart house chalet at their fingertips, and a starving ex-fiancée locked in the basement.

Chapter 14

I watched her somber form sound asleep on the leather sectional in the chalet, sadness lacing her features even in sleep. It wasn’t easy, watching her trying to escape those imposing walls. But I’d done the only thing that was left to do. She’d taken it a step too far. It was time.

Tear stains decorated her cheeks and her dark hair fell around her shoulders, obscuring her pretty face from my view, but I was rooted. I couldn’t take a picture if I tried. No one deserved to have that moment captured on film — when the life they thought they knew fell out from under them. If she’d only known the real story.

It’s only the tip of the iceberg, baby.

My instincts told me to go to her, hold her in my arms, and offer her some sense of comfort, but then I laughed with ironic spite, realizing how unwelcome my comfort would be.

I was the man responsible for taking her life apart one perfect piece at a time.

We were supposed to be the golden couple, but instead, I was her nightmare.

Chapter 15

I counted exactly twenty black beans and slid them across the plate. I gave the rest in the bowl a stir, and then replaced the airtight lid and returned it to the refrigerator shelf.

Tav had been gone for three days. The lights were still slow flickering almost every day, sometimes even in the middle of the night, waking me from my restless slumber.

The music continued to blare out of every surround-sound speaker at random times too. More heavy metal, and then soft and slow piano music that almost unnerved me more.

My ninth day here and I was on the brink of insanity.

I’d started seriously rationing my intake yesterday morning. It felt good to exercise power over something. Even though this house was the real person in control here. The artificial intelligence wasn’t so intelligent when the simple act of locking the doors could very well end my life. Unless . . . it was programmed to do just that exactly. I tried not to linger on those thoughts, realizing motive didn’t matter much when the likelihood that this was still just a glitch in the system was high.

I fingered the stack of unopened tortilla wraps, wondering if I dared give up one for dinner tonight.

I sighed, closing the refrigerator door and then scooped the remains of the rice I’d made for dinner last night onto my plate.

I’d come across an old National Geographic hardcover in the small study off the main hallway. The book detailed the highest mountains in the Northeast. I’d taken a shot at guessing which my mountain top was, but it didn’t matter, the short paragraph said that these peaks regularly saw snowstorms into the month of June. While I’d been imagining lockdown until spring, the mountain may have had other plans. The house may have had other plans. But I wouldn’t wait that long, couldn’t. I’d throw myself through the window before I starved to death. Not that the outcome would be much different, but I needed to maintain some semblance of control over my autonomy. Hope was all I had, and so I clung to it.

I ate my beans two at a time, remembering the last time I was this careful about what I put in my body when my group of closest girlfriends had challenged each other to a week-long fast before junior prom. I’d give anything to have my boring old self back with boring regular problems like gaining too much weight before a big event.

Three small beeps echoed around the room then.

The screen near the door blinked once and off. I wondered if I could turn that damn thing off — the distraction it provided was nowhere near worth the convenience. I crossed the dining room to see what it was beeping about now. The only indication was a tiny red dot in the corner with what looked like a camera icon.

Like the house was recording.

“Hello?”

No answer. Of course no answer.

I’m losing my mind.

My eyes trained to the distance out the window, heaps of sugary white powder as far as the eye could see.

I swiped the binoculars from the side table and brought them to my face, focusing on the tiny cabin in the valley in the distance. It looked no bigger than a dollhouse from here, but if I focused long enough I swear I could almost see a figure working in the backyard.

Two figures?

My vision blurred before I pulled down the binoculars and looked out again. I couldn’t tell anything from this distance and it creeped me out.

Whoever lived in that cabin could see everything of me, and all I could see of him was the little wisp of woodsmoke he created.

I never thought the top of the world would feel so eerie.

“When will the snow stop?” I asked the smart system.

“The weather forecast for the next ten days is snow showers with a chance of freezing rain.”

I groaned.

The screen blinked again, and this time I slid my fingertips across the glass. I swiped to what looked like a gaming dock with app options like virtual workouts and arcades and the relaxing sounds of a fireplace or a rainy day. I tapped the workout option and jumped back when the entire screen became a virtual mirror of me. A tiny animated figure jogged in the corner as a timer counted the seconds. “So there is a camera integrated into the screen.”

I closed the app and the screen went dim.

A shiver ran through me as I wondered what else the house was hiding from me. Were there cameras in all the rooms? And who was on the other side? I was convinced if I searched hard enough I’d find an emergency SOS button or a user manual to alert the programmers behind the system that was meant to make this house safer, not deadlier.

I crossed the kitchen to finish my beans when my toe hit the edge of Tav’s laptop bag. I’d just assumed he’d taken his laptop with him, but the fact that he left the bag behind probably made sense since he was low on room in his rucksack.

I yanked the bag up to the table and the contents sprayed around my feet.

Paperwork. A wireless mouse. An extra charger and earbuds for his phone. His wallet.

Tav’s wallet?

Without thinking, I opened it. The slot that normally held his identification was empty, and his main bank card was missing. Tav rarely carried cash, so the lack of paper money wasn’t surprising, but the picture that smiled back at me through the ID viewing window gave me a shudder.

A picture of me, mother, and Chuck scrunched together in front of the church steps. I wore a white cotton dress with eyelets across the yolk and sleeves. Chuck’s thick palms crushed me to his side, and my ten-year-old face gleamed with the willingness to please. Mom stood under Chuck’s other arm, her palm spread across his chest and a happy smile filling her face.

I remembered this day well.

Another Sunday, this one after he’d been gone for months. She’d tried calling his usual phone number from the payphone in town because our little trailer didn’t have a working phone line. Mom liked it that way, but that was only when Chuck was visiting often. The longer he stayed away, the cagier her eyes grew. Tension pulsed through the house when she realized he’d changed or lost his phone number and she may never see him again.

But it wasn’t long after that he’d sauntered up our front porch steps and gathered Mom in his arms. She’d cried tears of happiness that Saturday night, and bright and early Sunday they’d made sure I was at church, my bottom in the pew while they clung to each other in sweaty sheets at home. I hated Sundays because they always picked me up from the church with hair rumpled by lovemaking and the scent of each other on their skin.

Mom was happiest when Chuck came around, and I was cast off like last night’s takeaway containers.

I didn’t know why Tav liked this old picture of me. He’d found it one day when I was digging through my mom’s boxes after her belongings had been shipped home. I was surprised to find she’d kept everything from my childhood. I was more shocked to find so many pictures of her and Chuck — some from when I was only a toddler through to my early teens, and then the pictures ended. I read through old letters he’d sent her, and imagined her writing longhand back to him. For the first time, it had become clear that Chuck was the only man my mother had ever really loved. What was lacking in all of her belongings was any reference to my father, whoever he might be. I’d been hung up on the answers she’d buried with her, and Tav had snatched this photo and proclaimed I was the most adorable kid he’d ever seen.

I think it was the sad smile that struck him.

He knew I hated Sundays.

He just never bothered to ask why.

I think now it’s because he knew. He’d known the darkest secrets of my heart all along.

Unnerving violin music lit up the speakers then, the high notes so loud it caused my tears to ache and my jaw to clench with the violence of it.

Someone, or something, didn’t want me digging any deeper into Tav’s secrets. That much I was sure of.

Chapter 16

I know the baby isn’t mine.

I woke up gasping, the feeling of Tav’s words choking the air from my lungs as well as if his hands were around my neck.

I blinked into the darkness, the first soft pink tinges of sunrise creeping over the mountains.

Not another nightmare.

I pushed my hands over my face, my bones aching with exhaustion after a night of tossing and turning.

I know the baby isn’t mine.

I cupped my stomach like I often did, wondering what might have been.

I blinked back tears. The memories of the months surrounding the loss of my mother were a blur. Tav’s support lifted me up then, his willingness to drive me first to therapy appointments and then to my obstetrician made him a hero in my eyes. But I still couldn’t forget that one night. The night before I got the call that my mom had passed, Tav ordered our favorite takeout and held me on the couch while we watched an old romantic comedy on silent and talked about baby names.

We were deciding between Melody and Mason when he traced his lips down the underside of my arm, making love to me slowly as he dotted kisses along my jawline and temple.

I know the baby isn’t mine.

Had I made up the words? Had paranoia filled the holes in my memory with lies like the plaster between cracks? I didn’t think so. Was it possible? Maybe.

In the months since, I’d woken up to that one singular nightmare-memory so many times that my mind no longer distinguished reality from the frightening fiction.

The following morning was another Sunday I grew to hate.

My cell phone rattled us awake, our limbs tangled and the scent of us mingling when the officer in California informed me that my mother had been in an accident. Someone was required on-site to identify the victim.

Every memory after that one is hazy.

Tav arranged for the officer to talk to me over video call, and with his help I was able to confirm my own worst nightmare. The woman I loved, the only person who’d loved me enough to stay and raise me, was gone. A house fire, an unfortunate passing.

In the days following, we arranged for Mom’s remains to be brought home, and exactly one week after her passing, we suffered another blow.

A first trimester miscarriage. The tiny star of hope left shining in our lives was snuffed in an instant. The therapist explained that trauma and post-traumatic stress can trigger spontaneous miscarriages. I was doubly distraught, their losses triggering in my mind a cascade of conflicting anxiety and emotion. Was I at fault for the death I was drowning in? My willingness to leave the house fizzled to nothing, and my ability to focus deeply and single-mindedly on only one project at a time faltered as my codependent habits and unhealthy triggers fired day and night.

Tav was my rock, until the four days of the week he was gone. It was then he ordered regular deliveries from the market to our front step, and arranged for a cleaning company to regularly dust around me while I distracted myself with the business. We shared takeout dinners together over video calls and he was the only reason I had in the world to smile. I looked forward to his calls; if he didn’t call to talk to me, no one would.

But still, I remembered that night.

I know the baby isn’t mine.

I’d given him no reason to think there’d ever been anyone else. Or had I?

I gnawed at my bottom lip.

The story I’ve told myself might be my downfall. The memories. Or the nightmares. However I chose to see them, they haunted me. They kept me walking the hallways at night, or my eyes glued to a computer screen in a desperate bid to keep them at bay. I’d come to rely on Tav more than ever through the worst moments, but I’d come to wonder which fragments of my memory were real and which were not. My days spent dreaming of him far outweighed the moments he was in my arms. Now with my vague memories playing tricks, I struggled to wonder what of us was love and what were the cobbled fragments of my imagination. So much about Tav and me was intense but sporadic — did one outweigh the other? Had the dreams for our future just been shattered irrevocably in one fell swoop? I’d been waiting to tell my mother in person about the arrival of her future grandchild, but she’d been taken before I could share the surprise. Had my own ability to be a mother been stolen from me in the same horrific way?

Tav rarely spoke of marriage after the loss of the baby.

I’d been grappling with whether his only reason for asking was because we were pregnant, and now that we weren’t, maybe that future had vanished too.

I rose out of bed and with the blanket wrapped around my shoulders, I went to the window. Shadows played along the tall banks of powder, evergreen boughs heavy with sugary frosting-tipped leaves.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

“What was that?” Anxiety tightened like a ball in my throat.

I struggled to see through the spray of frost that clung to the window.

“Is someone there?”

I watched in silent horror as a man, shoulders hunched and snowshoes strapped to his feet, rushed away from the chalet.

A stranger was out there.

Chapter 17

I hope you’ve settled in. I have a few surprises for you. Don’t disappoint me.

I’ll be watching.

x Yours.

I reread the words, fear charging on a loop through my bloodstream. What did the letter mean? Why now? And who was watching?

I stood at the front door, winter socks on my feet and a kitchen knife clutched in one hand. I must have looked like a mess — I felt it, hand trembling as I read the words over and over.

I’d just discovered that the small doggy-sized panel at the base of the door opened, and it was just big enough to fit the small box through that had been left on my doorstep just minutes ago.

I’d already tried to wiggle out it myself, but only my arms fit through the space, my shoulders too wide to clear the barely six-by-six-inch space in the wood. It was like the panel had been made just for the box. But who had dropped it off? Who was the stranger trudging through the snow to make this delivery at the crack of dawn on top of the mountain?

Who was watching me?

I dropped the folded scrap of notepaper the letter was inscribed on and kicked at the cardboard box at my feet until it slid across the tile floor. Inserting the tip of the knife along one taped corner, I lifted the edge and then opened the top fully.

Food.

Mostly salted meats and sausages, but there were mason jars of pickled vegetables and tomato sauces too. I dug deeper, hands curling around a still-warm jug of what looked like goat’s milk. It felt like a feast for a king, even if I would never have eaten any of these things at home.

When I came down the stairs earlier, I hadn’t known what to expect, only wishing I’d known where that gun was hiding when I saw the burly stranger walking away from my front door. But it didn’t matter, the contents left tears of joy brimming in my eyes. Maybe Tav had found his way out, maybe he’d arranged this until he could get a helicopter to me. Hope beat through my chest for the first time in days. I pushed the exhaustion from my brain, the nightmare long forgotten as I went to work unpacking the new rations and adding it to my stash in the pantry.

Dried jerkies and cured cheeses and even cans of nuts and dried fruit were buried in the bottom reaches of the box. By the time I’d emptied it, I’d calculated that I had enough to get me through a few more weeks at least. If I rationed everything daily. My mouth began to salivate as I wondered what kind of delicacy I could indulge in for dinner that night. Maybe lentil soup or smoked salmon. I rarely gave much thought to dinner at home, but given no other option, my mind cycled over the nutrient content in every morsel that passed my lips.

I emptied the box, closing the flaps and for the first time noticing who the package was addressed to: The Sunday Wife.

What did that mean? Had there been a wife locked up here before me? Was there a Monday and a Tuesday Wife too?

I’ll be watching.

Don’t disappoint me.

The note felt more ominous on the second reading. Whoever was in control of the locked doors and violent music and flickering lights must be behind this delivery.

I had to know who was watching and from where. Was it the man that had delivered the box? Was he my neighbor in the valley with the puff of chimney smoke?

I ran for the binoculars again, holding them to my eyes as I searched the landscape through the wintery window. The idea of trekking out into the snow for answers felt like a poor waste of energy resources, even if I could leave, but the idea of sitting and waiting at the top of this mountain while someone else watched me felt even more horrifying.

I gulped down my fear, anxious for the sun to fully rise and light the landscape, maybe then I could investigate the footprints and make out which direction they’d come from. I tapped the smart house screen, checking that the doors were still locked and the alarm system was still intact. While it brought a sense of safety upon our arrival at the chalet, now it felt more like a prison security system meant to keep me locked in.

This winter paradise had become my own personal purgatory.

When the sun fully crested the mountain peaks to the east, I shoved a pair of sneakers on my feet and then headed for the basement, determined to find the rifle that I’d found a few days earlier.

For protection, I told myself.

Or maybe curiosity.

Was the gun one of the surprises?

As I descended the basement steps, heavy metal charged through the speakers, deafening the hollow echo of my steps on the stairwell. It felt like the house was trying to keep me out of the basement — someone didn’t want me down here. This house held secrets, and I was determined to discover them, no matter the cost.

With only a few bare bulbs lighting my way, I dug through the closet where I’d first found the rifle and the ice melt. The ice melt was in the spot I’d left it, but after twenty minutes of searching the dark corners, there was no gun. I slumped against the door jamb, mind running wild with me as I wondered where it had gone. It was so hard to think with the music shaking the walls and rattling my eardrums.

Had Tav taken the gun with him for protection? I hadn’t seen it on him when he’d left early that morning, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t found a way to dismantle it and stow the pieces in his rucksack. Terror looped through my bloodstream as I considered for the first time that maybe I’d been sleeping right here with the enemy all along. Maybe Tav wasn’t who I’d thought, but how could that be? We had two years of history together, never had he indicated any sort of psychotic split from reality.

Or had I been too busy looking the other way?

I became obsessed then, determined to find the weapon. Determined to prove the innocence of my future husband. The man I loved. The man that had swept me away to a winter wonderland.

I stumbled away from the closet and into the main basement, darkness shrouding the corners just like it had when Tav had hurt his ankle down here. I felt along the walls in the darkness, fearful of what I might find and just as fearful about what I might not. My fingers landed on a switch then, and I flipped all of the knobs in an effort to find another light. They were all burned out, or attached to other electrical items in the house that I couldn’t see. The electrical guts of the smart house were familiar, but the actions conveyed consequences I wasn’t yet sure of. Everything about this place left me off kilter, my sense of reality and the outside world dampening as I grew accustomed to my own shallow breaths.

I reached another dark corner, prepared to give up and search instead for a flashlight or candle to light my way, when my fingers wrapped around the trim of a door jamb. I found the door-knob, twisting it easily. The door swung open, the smell of old dust and dirt invading my nostrils in a plume.

I searched along the wall for a light switch, thankful when I landed on something hard and plastic. I flipped the switch, relieved when a dim yellow light lit the old room.

The music was quieter in this corner of the basement, no speakers to drown out my thoughts as my eyes adjusted to the wash of light.

And then I nearly stumbled.

I was looking back at myself.

Wall-to-wall.

Everywhere.

Chapter 18

A picture of me around three years old in matching braids and a yellow dress stared back at me. The polaroid had long been sepia-toned, but my smile was bright and cheery. Another of my mother as she pushed me on a swing at the park. A school photo from third grade, another from sixth. Someone had categorized my entire life into snapshots. Each one hung on the wall haphazardly with thumbtacks, and many looked like they’d been there for years. In fact, this room looked barely used, judging by the layer of dust on every surface.

But why was I here?

Was this the room Tav had been searching for when he twisted his ankle? I immediately dropped to the floor and looked under an old wooden desk for any sign of the rifle. If someone really was watching and using the smart house system to do it, they would know I’d found this room.

Or was that one of the surprises?

“I have to get out of here,” I said to myself as I flung a small closet door open. More boxes were stacked to my waist, no indication that any had been moved recently.

“What is going on here?”

“Emergency services disengaged.” The voice of the house echoed through the surround speakers and down into this basement cave.

“What? No, wait — what emergency services?” I tore the nearest polaroid off the wall, a copy similar to the one I’d found in Tav’s wallet upstairs, but this one from a different angle.

I slipped it into my back pocket and cut the lights in the event one of the security cameras was watching me.

I didn’t bother with the other lights, only ran up the stairs, determined to contact the emergency services the house apparently had access to. By the time I reached the front door smart screen, the border of the normally black screen was blinking red, the word emergency lit along the top.

I punched the screen a few times, but it was unresponsive to my touch.

“What emergency services? A snowplow? A helicopter? I need a helicopter to get off this stupid rock.”

“Emergency averted.”

The screen stopped blinking and faded to its usual black.

“Wait, no! Help me! I need a helicopter.”

The screen remained black.

“Emergency! Call emergency services!” I spoke clearly, and then resorted to yelling.

“Emergency averted. Emergency averted. System locked.”

I tapped the screen again, wondering if the wiring was going haywire or if one of the switches downstairs had triggered this.

“Emergency not averted. Come back,” I begged.

“Emergency system deactivated.”

Two deafening beeps sounded through the house and then the screen turned off completely. No more blinking red dots, no more tiny recorder symbols in the corner. Lights flickered wildly in the kitchen, no slow and steady as they had before, but with a violent cadence that was more unnerving than before.

“Hello?”

The house was silent.

“Hey! Draw me a bath!”

My voice echoing off the rafters was my only reply.

“Why do I feel more alone than ever all of a sudden?” The sense that I was no longer protected by modern civilization was deafening. A chill bubbled through me as I realized I was my only hope. I was my own last resort. I couldn’t wait for Tav or a helicopter or another mountain man to deliver rations. If I wanted to make it off this mountain, I’d have to conquer it myself.

Even if it killed me.

Chapter 19

Sweat pricked at my skin.

I blinked into the darkness, delirious from exhaustion and poor nutrition and the uneven balance of chemicals in my brain. I blinked again, hands clutching at the leather couch cushions as I realized where I was. Asleep on the couch, stacks of my childhood photos piled on my chest and the coffee table at my side.

The chalet. The room. Hell.

I pressed a hand to my head, realizing the full moon had pulled me from my sleep with its kaleidoscope of light patterning my eyelids.

I sighed, wiping the beads of dampness from my forehead, and then shut my eyes and wished for a time before the chalet. Before Tav.

Bradley’s warm eyes caught mine across the dance floor. His familiar arms circled my waist as we swayed, our bodies pressed together in a sea of hundreds as old nineties music charged through the sound system. Steph was supposed to meet us at the bar, but she’d never shown up. Bradley and I were alone and somehow it felt so right.

I wasn’t sure why that memory had entered my mind at that time, but I missed Bradley and Steph too. They’d both been such a mainstay in my life for so long. When Bradley had left for his tour of duty, his absence left me feeling like a ship without a port on rough seas, riding the waves of strangers as I silently sank inside myself. Bradley was the only one that had known how to draw me out through all of high school. His teasing charm and ability to read me left me weak in the knees, his dark eyes my only soft place to fall.

Bradley had been on my mind more than ever these last few months because he’d only shown up again just before Mom passed. Just as I’d found an old friend, I’d lost something else. Being with Bradley felt as natural as breathing air, but had the reality been anything but? Had Bradley’s return to my life been orchestrated? My favorite distraction had arrived just when life was about to pull me under, like we were fated.

My chest ached as I thought of Bradley now. He must be worried sick . . . or was he? I hated that I couldn’t trust anyone or anything. The fact remained that someone was watching, I had the note to prove it. But who? And how would I ever find out without leaving?

I imagined a scenario where I at least had access to the internet, surely then I could deduce who was holding me captive here by process of elimination. I chuckled to myself, imagining the kind of message I would send to Bradley if I could:

Help, I’m trapped! This house is holding me captive! Send the police!

He wouldn’t believe me. I don’t think I would have believed me.

Bradley’s wide, friendly grin caught my eye in one of the polaroids taken at church one Sunday when I was a kid. He stood at the pond behind the church skipping stones, and I sat on a rock watching, both of our laughs visible even through the grainy image.

Bradley was the sibling I’d never had but always craved. He’d tried to kiss me twice back then, once after school when I was thirteen for a dare, and the last time on the night of my eighteenth birthday when he told me he was joining the military. I cried as he kissed my lips and told me he’d stay if I promised to marry him.

I wouldn’t say it.

Not because I didn’t want to, but because it scared me so much that I’d shut down.

Just like I always did.

I couldn’t see the forest for the trees when it came to life decisions. Mom had been there for that, and then Tav. And now all I had was me.

Should I stay or should I go?

I’d taken to moving around the house quietly and keeping my thoughts to myself just in case the house was listening.

Correction: it was listening, I just didn’t know who was behind it.

I fingered the polaroid of Bradley and me, wondering what it meant that this house contained so much of my childhood.

Some of the photos were some I’d never seen before.

I wondered how long this house had been here, and if its solitary presence was meant to do just that: stoke the fear that went so well with isolation.

I’d never felt so connected and so disconnected at the same time.

Like a split from reality, only I was the portion cleaved off and discarded.

There were no others.

I was alone up here.

Just me and a stranger.

I pushed myself off the couch then, letting the photos fall in a spray at my feet.

More memories of the last time I’d seen Bradley charged through me. His bare shoulders glistened in the sunshine as he worked at the clay with a shovel in my back garden. His lips whispering thank you at my neck as I delivered ice tea and he swayed us back and forth, begging me to go out to dinner with him. He wasn’t Tav, but how could he feel so right? I remembered thinking.

I refused to answer Tav’s phone call that night.

I felt like a teenager again, the hit of the drug Bradley was offering was too irresistible to pass up, but visions of Tav had lingered in my mind.

I loved him. Tav and I would be married someday.

But then why was I dancing with Bradley under the sunshine in the backyard?

Because we’re friends, I’d told myself.

Tav had questioned Bradley’s return to my life from the beginning. Steph had said a high school fling was just what I needed.

I’d laughed her off because Bradley and I had never been a fling. Friends, best friends, for a long time, but nothing more.

Until that night on the dance floor when she failed to show up and his lips had grazed mine, his fingertips sending a rush of adrenaline through me.

I wanted him that night, but I wanted Tav forever.

Even when Tav and I were under the same roof, he was often a million miles away in his own digital universe. Like this house, I realized. Here, but hardly real.

I still remembered the unfamiliar weight of Bradley’s palm resting at my back. Always the gentleman. Even now, it struck me.

When a slow song from our teenage years started, Bradley had guided me tenderly to a quieter corner of the bar. His hips vibrated against mine, our breaths mingled as he ran his lips along my jawline. “I never could get over you.”

Before I could answer Bradley, a dark shadow caught my eye in the corner.

Tousled blond hair, cheekbones carved in granite. A rogue grin and just the right breadth in the stretch of the shoulders.

Tav?

I blinked at the visions, even as I sat at the chalet and thought back on that night before the baby, before losing Mom, before the pain. I wondered if it was real.

If it was Tav who’d been watching me as I danced with Bradley on the dance floor.

Tav was supposed to be in Charleston that night. Meetings with a naval contractor, he’d said over the phone.

But had he really been in Lancaster? Following me?

Before I could decide whether to cross the dance floor and confirm his identity or cower in Bradley’s shadow and assume that my eyes were playing tricks, Bradley had snagged my hand and guided me to the front doors. He’d bundled me in his car and driven me home, chatting the entire way about a new job his landscaping firm had landed that would double his yearly income. And with this new job, he would be never more than five minutes away from me all day long.

He’d meant it as a reassurance of his steadfast presence, but did it mean more now?

I twisted my fingers together, eyes tracking the full moon over the chalet as it fell across the night sky. Fragments of mist and milky way swirled at the edges, much like my memories of that night. Had Tav been real, or just another mirage conjured by my imagination? Had he come to me that night, or were my thoughts merely just tiny fragmented bits of memory bouncing around my mind, neither fiction nor reality?

Tav’s late-night declaration rang in my mind again.

I know the baby isn’t mine.

Was he right?

For the life of me, I couldn’t remember.

Chapter 20

She rarely moved.

I’d watched her all damn day. It was as if she was hobbled by her mere survival.

I wasn’t really sure how much she knew about his side of things, but I could only hope she was innocent. So far, she seemed totally in the dark.

I wondered if he had any inkling that the house of cards he’d created was about to tumble. Handcuffs or body bag, the outcome was a pendulum in motion at this stage. I asked no questions, only took orders.

The intel I’d managed to dig up on him equaled more than a mountain’s worth of paperwork. The stacks of files, the photos, a petty criminal record expunged by a judge. His secrets weren’t buried as deep as he’d hoped.

I watched her toss and turn in bed before I turned away. I could only imagine him in his own haze of guilt as she fought sleep, none the wiser. I wished not for the first time that she’d never met him, no doubt in my mind that she wouldn’t have found herself in my sights otherwise.

Poor Freya, so vulnerable to the darkest sides of herself.

I hoped when his head hit the pillow each night, he thought of the pain he would soon be putting her through.

And I hoped it wouldn’t break her when she found out the truth.

“Welcome to my shit list, motherfucker.”

I’d watched her searching for the clues frantically, trying to piece together the facts in her own fogged mind. She was smart, but she only had half the facts, just one side of the story.

I had the other piece of vital information that connected the entire intricate web. It had been hard to find, taken me days of digging, but then one irrefutable piece of evidence had shown itself. One whisper-thin piece of paper that had been buried for decades and brought the entire game into focus. I just wasn’t sure what would destroy her more, him or the secret.

Chapter 21

Whoever had lured me to the chalet did so with a purpose.

I was meant to find the photos. By the next morning, I’d become convinced of that much. As the moonlight shifted to the dull misty gray of morning, I hunted through the house like my life depended on it.

I covered the rooms and closets upstairs. I pulled the fuses on every electrical box I found as a means of privacy — all of the lights blinked and went dark. I hoped the house was no longer watching, but I still couldn’t be sure. Had someone from a remote location triggered the alarm yesterday as I drew nearer to finding something I wasn’t meant to? Or had it been a random glitch? I had the sense nothing was random anymore, despite my desperation to wish it so.

I huffed, realizing why they called this area Deception Gorge. The extreme elevation and isolation among jagged cliffs and embankments played tricks of the mind and shifted my perception.

Was Tav’s leaving the right thing to do? I didn’t know, but my muscles were drawn to the pantry anyway, assessing the shelves for items that I would take with me if I decided to trek out of here on my own.

How long could I wait? Would I find another bridge or a helpful neighbor?

I imagined shoving all of the cured meats into my pack along with the box of protein bars Tav had brought that had gone untouched and breaking a window to escape.

Why hadn’t he taken more food with him?

Was it a kind gesture, leaving them for me? Or had he not bothered taking anything to eat because he knew he’d be able to trek right off this mountain?

Or worse, what if he hadn’t made it off the mountain at all?

What if he’d only made it as far as the burly stranger that had delivered provisions? Or what if he was the stranger in disguise, meant to scare me into staying put?

I gnashed my teeth together, mind whirling with the possibilities.

Was Tav my enemy?

Could I trust the man that had delivered early morning goods by snowshoe even if I could find him?

And who was the Sunday Wife?

I thought of the tiny cabin in the valley, curls of woodsmoke against the blue sky. It was difficult to tell how far away it was — my perception from atop the mountain was thrown, but I calculated at least a half a day’s hike down the steepest ridge of the mountain if I angled directly for it.

I figured that was my best shot. My memory was hazy from our late-night drive into the chalet, but I remembered at least half a dozen side roads and many more paths through the woods that may or may not lead to my nearest neighbor.

It could take me days trying to weave through the woods as I made my way off this mountain by way of the road. My only option was to hike down to the valley and keep that cabin in my line of sight at all times. And pray that when I arrived the inhabitants would be welcoming to a helpless stranger.

And that’s assuming I wouldn’t be hurt trying to escape this nightmare chalet that held me captive.

Was this Tav’s plan all along? To leave me up here to die?

Chapter 22

I worked late into that day and the night searching for survival items to bring on my theoretical hike, and some sort of strong object that could crack the double-paned windows that locked me in.

I still hadn’t decided if I was brave enough to leave the chalet, but waiting felt just as futile.

Would I survive if I left? Would I survive if I stayed?

On my hands and knees, I sorted through Tav’s laptop bag again. I didn’t know what I might find — stray cash or bank cards, assuming I was even lucky enough to reach society? A note or receipt or some other indication that he’d known what he was doing when he brought me up here and left me? I fingered through the small zippers and slots, curiosity driving me forward as I suddenly felt like his life had become so removed from mine these last months.

Had it always been this way? Had we let our love wax and wane like the cycles of the moon? Were we settling or just getting started?

I emptied his bag of the last remaining bits of paper and scribbled notes of computer code, finding nothing of value, until I turned back to his wallet.

I hadn’t bothered searching it since the first time, but now as I inspected the slots nestled between the layers of fine leather, my fingers ruffled the edges of something old. I angled the thin paper out, surprised again to find another small polaroid, this one a quarter the size of the ones hanging in the room downstairs, even though the subject was the same.

Me.

Bradley held me in a bear hug in the foreground of this photo, my braids flying through the air as he spun me and a laugh lit my cheeks. Mom stood in the background, one hand on her hips and a smile on her face.

But she wasn’t looking at me, she stared at whoever was taking the photo off camera.

Who had been the photographer?

I struggled to remember Bradley’s parents ever coming to Sunday church; his dad was a miner that worked jobs away more months of the year than not.

I began to wonder if there was more I was missing. Was this another surprise I was meant to find? Or a coincidental mistake?

I know the baby isn’t mine.

Tav’s words rang through my head. If he’d been in possession of so many photos of Bradley and me from our shared childhoods, some of which I’d never even seen or known of, no wonder Tav thought I might have had an affair with Bradley.

Did that justify him following me?

And where had he gotten these photos?

Confusion pounded through my mind as I considered the range of possibilities, and the far greater probability that the reality of the situation was probably something I couldn’t even think of. Tav had probably found this photo at our house in one of my mother’s boxes — maybe he’d meant to frame it and present it to me.

Or maybe he considered it evidence.

I continued searching in the folds of the leather, surprised when two more, almost paper-thin pictures fell from a slot.

The first, a picture of me and my mother that same day. The same braids, the same flowers on my mother’s Sunday dress.

The other photo wasn’t a photo at all, but a postcard-sized sheet of glossy photo paper. I unfolded it quickly, fingers shaking as awareness rocketed through my nerves.

An ultrasound photo.

Our ultrasound photo.

Our baby.

Chapter 23

I tossed two water reservoir packs up the stairs, pulling the other two over my shoulders and powering up the steps until I reached the top. I’d been stretching out my muscles all day, trying to build some small resistance training in preparation for snowshoeing down it in the next few days. I was worried about leaving the chalet, but I was more worried about staying.

I couldn’t sleep at night, unwilling to be locked up inside like a caged animal with the lights flickering wildly and the music volume cranked to an unbearable level. The lights refused to come on at twilight when I needed them most, and all of the light switches were still disengaged since I’d yanked the wires from the electrical box in the basement. There must have been a back-up generator somewhere though, because they still flickered randomly and at other times didn’t work at all. Living in the darkness was terrifying, but knowing someone was likely watching was even more unsettling. I was less afraid of the unseen in this house than I was of the known threats that existed through its screens. Like eyes into my life, I’d done my best to blind them from my daily movements, but I didn’t have faith that I’d covered all of my bases. The refrigerator still cooled my food and the screen lit up whenever I approached. I knew there was likely also a camera that could spy on me from there, but I couldn’t risk my cold food storage by taking a bat to that too.

My life had been small before the chalet, but it was mine. I wanted it back. It had been over ten days since Tav had been gone; he was either off this mountain or dead. Either way, I couldn’t wait to find out.

I reached the top of the stairs, tossing all four of the water reservoirs into the sink to wash before filling them to test their ability to hold water.

I passed the tiny ultrasound photo hanging on the refrigerator, edges crinkled and deep lines where Tav had folded it tightly into his wallet.

What did it mean that he’d kept it?

I remembered the moment he’d found out I was expecting over a video call late one night. I’d wanted to wait to tell him in person, but I’d been so overwhelmed with emotion he’d noticed something was off. Soon I was breaking down as I confessed my secret. Tav was in his car within minutes, driving the five hours to wrap me in his arms. He rubbed my back while I fell asleep that night, and made sure he cleared his schedule for my prenatal appointments.

I only had three, but he attended each of them like the dad I prayed he would be.

I know the baby isn’t mine.

His words from my dream still rang loudly in my ears. I fingered the shape of the tiny black-and-white form on the glossy paper, thinking I would take this with me when I left the chalet as a reminder that each step I took was a step towards truth. I didn’t know what I might find on the other side of the door, but I would walk head first into the fire anyway.

The way Tav spoiled me into complacency in the months following the miscarriage was tempting, his generous gifts and attentive devotions were always intoxicating, but his availability to me only on long weekends and over video chat grew exhausting. Loneliness had been the driving force when I accepted Bradley’s phone call that first day he was back in town. His friendship mattered more to me than I realized, and it was him I thought I would call first if I wasn’t able to find Tav. I imagined hiking out to civilization and getting cell phone reception for the first time — would Tav answer my call? Did he even still have his phone?

The quest for answers drove me into the night, gathering items and rearranging them in my rucksack to make everything fit.

By the time I was falling asleep on the couch, I figured I’d be able to fit two weeks of provisions in my bag. I’d found two new ski poles that would serve as safety tools to help me test the ice and avoid any deep crevices, and they would double as my only weapons.

Despite searching every closet in this house, the rifle that had been here once was gone.

That meant that I had to make sure I had an alternative fit for any occasion. I could kill a charging wolf or a threatening stranger with a well-aimed ski pole to the throat. I hoped I wouldn’t have to, but I could if needed.

I held the small polaroid in the light, yawning as I thought back on the series of Sundays that had rocked my life over the decades. The times when Chuck and my mother fought so loudly and so late into the night that I hid under the mattress with a pillow over my ears. I often woke up Sunday mornings to his boots at the edge of the bed, grin on his face as he pulled me out and wrapped me in a hug. He always smelled like Mom those mornings, and I hated him for knowing her so well. I hated her more for letting him into our lives like she did, even though his presence only brought chaos.

I hated Sundays.

I planned on changing that.

This Sunday I would leave the chalet and take back my life.

This Sunday would be the start of something new.

Little did I realize that something new would be worse, much worse than lockdown in this sinister smart house.

Chapter 24

The Second Sunday

I clutched a hunk of iron metalwork I’d found in one of the dark closets in the basement.

I’d searched the house a dozen times for the gun. Every dusty nook and cranny had been scoured and this was the closest thing I could find to a weapon. It was rusted, the flecks of orange coming off on my hands like dried blood.

I gulped, gripping tightly and lining up my swing with the centermost section of the window behind the kitchen table. This was my only chance. I risked shattering it on impact, shards of glass in my eyes and cutting my hands. Maybe I’d be too injured to hike down the mountain, but soon I would be too weak to even try. And I wasn’t willing to rely on the rations of a stranger making random deliveries — could I even trust that the food he brought wasn’t poisoned or laced with some nerve-damaging toxin?

I trusted no one. That’s the lesson Tav had taught me, inadvertently or not.

Before fear weakened my resolve, I swung. The iron bar bounced back at me, the window refusing to break.

“No!” I hollered.

I beat at the window again. Not so much as a hairline crack gave. I swung again, then imagined I wasn’t close enough to deliver the proper amount of power, so I stepped closer and swung with all my might.

A tiny fracture split the windowpane. I swung again and again. I swung until my shoulders ached and my muscles burned. I swung until I didn’t have it in me to do any more damage. I swung until the alarm system blared, alerts sounding throughout the house at unbearable levels as heavy metal anthems chugged through the sound system and the lights flickered and pulsed with a sense of violent anger. I’d violated the house, and it would have its retribution.

I slumped back in the chair, defeated by the extra layers of insolation from the outside world the chalet afforded. I swallowed bile rising in my throat and dropped the rusted iron bar at my feet, fingertips whispering along the crack that was barely visible in the window.

With my last resort in mind, I moved to the pantry and took the cast iron skillet hanging from a hook on the wall. I kissed the back of it once, sending a prayer up to whoever might be watching, and then approached the window.

I didn’t have it in me to keep trying relentlessly, I knew that. I had to make this one count.

I squared up to the window, one foot in front of the other like I’d done at home plate playing softball so many times as a kid. I licked my lips, blinking back tears and sending up another prayer before shuttling the iron skillet with every ounce of power I had at the window.

A large crack splintered the first pane.

“Yes!” I cheered. Then I swung again, watching as the heavy skillet began to eat away at the reinforced window. I swung a third time and the pane nearest me split into large shards, more cracks bleeding across the second pane. I contented to beat until I’d made a hole the size of a dinner plate and cold winter air rushed against my face.

I sucked in a thankful gulp, swinging again and again until the hole grew large enough for me to fit through. Then, with adrenaline bubbling through my body, I wrapped my hands in gloves and threw one of the luxury bath towels over the shards and yanked as hard as I could. One giant piece came free and I fell back onto the tile floor along with it. I cried tears of relief as I realized I wouldn’t die on this mountain. I still had a chance.

I would survive.

* * *

The car is gone.

An hour later I stood at a large snowbank, snowshoes strapped to my feet, and the place where Tav and I had left the car before hiking into the chalet was empty. I struggled to remember what Tav had said: the car is buried under snow.

My eyes searched the embankments, heavy evergreen boughs sweeping the snowy forest floor as I tried to estimate how much the snow may have piled up since I’d been on the mountain.

I’d been at the chalet for fifteen days.

How much snow had accumulated since Tav left? And how much had been blown around in the blustery winds that circled this peak?

I stabbed the ski pole I’d found into the snow, testing my next few steps as I walked to where I vaguely remembered Tav parking the car. I didn’t think the snow was so deep that I wouldn’t notice if I was standing on top of my own car, but the only other explanation was the bridge, which still looked closed down from my view of it in the cloudy distance. One entire ice-ridden suspension cable hung down into the depths of the frigid waters that lapped at the base of the mountain.

Driving over Deception Gorge at night was bad enough, but during the day it was far more terrifying. The frothy white waves licked the base of the rocks where the steel of the bridge anchored to the slippery granite. Everything about Deception Gorge was clouded with mist and treachery. If one bad ice storm could knock out the only means of reaching civilization, why would anyone live on this mountain? But then the isolation was a perk for a certain sort of person — the kind that had secrets to keep.

I stabbed my pole into the snowbank at the far southern edge of the clearing. I remembered the sheer cliff that dropped down to the water just a few yards around the bend that had taken me by surprise as we’d climbed the switchbacks up the mountain weeks ago.

I shivered, wishing again that I would have just begged Tav to find the nearest seedy roadside motel for the night. The chalet might have been layered with luxury but it had become my very own house of horrors.

I turned then, heading back out of the clearing the way I’d come. I wound my way through the trees, following my snowshoe tracks the few miles up the trail that ended at the chalet. I wondered if the man that had delivered my box of rations had taken this same trail, or if there was another that led more directly to his cabin.

By the time I’d crested the small ridge, my thoughts had fallen on a late-night call Tav and I had had one night while he was in the city.

With my eyelids drooping, he’d told me a horrifying bedtime story of his parents fighting when he was young. “Time, money, women, parenting — you name it, they fought over it,” he’d said.

Their vicious insults were so chilling to him and his little brothers that one of the boys would bloody or bruise the other until their parents would have to stop their fighting temporarily to take care of their sons. It was a heavy price to pay, but one they believed was worth it. I’d held our future baby in my belly then, and he’d promised that he would never turn into his parents. He vowed to take care of me and our children, and he vowed to love us harder than either of his parents had ever loved him. He promised me the world, and I believed him.

I’d never met Tav’s parents, and after that story, I never wanted to. I ached for the little boys that cowered in closets and under beds, and I was reminded of my own moments spent hiding in the shadows of my own house. With tears of sadness in my eyes, Tav and I swore to be better parents than we’d both had. I think it’s something that connected us more than we realized. And I think I lived for that connection more than I realized.

I unstrapped the snowshoes from my boots, planted my bottom on the top stair of the chalet and took in the stark beauty around me. The thought crossed my mind that these mountains could be like calm, benevolent parents or traumatic, terrorizing tempests.

One of my own worst childhood memories came back to me then, and with head pounding and teeth on edge, I climbed back through the broken window of the chalet trying to forget the night a series of small horrors unfolded into tears and terror.

The first time I’d gone on antidepressants was because of one entire night spent curled up under my dingy mattress.

I gulped, trying to distract myself by punching at the smart house screen, suddenly feeling the need to confirm the security system was operational. I needed a distraction, any distraction. These were the moments my medication was prescribed for. For the seconds that stretched to eons when it felt like the world was crumbling down around me.

I continued tapping through the menus but soon gave up. I found solace in the one thing I knew how to do in this house: ask for the weather report.

“What’s the weather?” I could hear the crack in my own voice.

I dropped down onto the leather couch, letting the sun-warmed hide loosen my tense back muscles. I wasn’t strong enough to trek down this mountain alone, and I had food and warmth and a bed to sleep in — what was I thinking playing mountain woman today? But still one thought lingered: why was the car gone? And if Tav had escaped, why hadn’t he sent someone to rescue me?

“Today: clear with a high of twenty. The overnight: snow showers with a chance of gale-force winds. Tomorrow: below-zero temperatures and heavy cloud cover will make visibility low.”

I groaned.

Sliding deeper into the leather, I let my mind wander as I thought it was odd that the smart house wasn’t connected to the internet but was still able to give me a current weather report. Maybe the weather radio was powered by a satellite. Or maybe the internet wasn’t broken, but only disabled. Maybe the fact that the chalet could feed me the weather report and not my social media messages was a feature, not a flaw.

I remembered Tav’s fingers whipping across the keyboard, the incessant tap-tap-tap like a soundtrack to my life with him.

I loved Tav, but what had that gotten me?

Where did love get Mom?

Tears burned my eyes as I wiggled myself deeper into the couch, furry blanket wrapped around my shoulders while I hummed softly to myself in an effort to keep the memories at bay.

Love and Sundays. I hated them equally. By the time this was over, they would both ruin me.

Chapter 25

“Look at this pretty girl in her Sunday best.”

Thick fingers shaped like calloused sausages tugged at my shoulders. I pressed my knobby-kneed legs against the metal bed frame, wedging myself under the mattress to avoid his contact.

“Come to Papa Chuck. Give me a hug, girl.” I cringed at the slur in his words.

Tears spilled from my eyes as I squirmed out of his feeble grasp, my lungs screaming with the need for fresh air. Chuck’s palm yanked at the last place he could reach then, and my strawberry dress from church tore at the seams, the dainty spaghetti strap not nearly strong enough for a grown man’s grip.

I squeezed my eyes shut, fresh tears melting down my cheeks as I prayed over and over for someone to rescue me from under this mattress. With the smell of cat excrement in my nostrils, I prayed for deliverance from this desperate place. I prayed for a miracle and I believed that if I prayed hard enough, maybe Bradley or someone else would knock on the door and take me away.

I fell asleep clutching my strawberry dress to my chest and blocking out the vicious insults Mom and Chuck hurled at each other late into Sunday night. At some point he shuffled out the door, fired up his car and left Mom early before he had to be at work Monday morning.

I hated Sundays.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Chapter 26

Bang. Bang. Bang.

I shot off the sofa, heart in my throat after another terrorizing dream-memory. At the edges of my vision I saw someone rushing away from the chalet.

Another box.

I moved to the front door, opening it to find another box on the top step.

It was identical to last week, with The Sunday Wife written in dark marker along one edge. I slid the box inside the house, fingers working at the seams before I uncovered another handwritten note laying on top of a new array of cured meats and canned vegetables.

I hope you enjoyed the snowshoeing yesterday. Stay safe. Deception is deadly. Don’t tempt her.

x Yours

Instead of fear cracking my throat, anger bubbled to life. It burned up my spine and sent an adrenaline rush of goosebumps through me.

Deception is deadly.

I know the baby isn’t mine.

The lawn guy, Frey? Aren’t we both better than that?

The jumbled memories of Tav’s words came together with sudden realization. The sense of paranoia I’d previously held evaporated to crystal clarity.

“Fuck you, Tav.”

I moved quickly then. I’d been ready for this moment. I pushed my feet into my boots, lacing them tightly before pushing my winter jacket with the faux-fur collar over my shoulders. I snagged my already packed rucksack, zippers straining with the amount of food I’d packed inside it. With my backpack on my shoulders and both ski poles in hand, I slung the filled water reservoirs over my shoulder, hurled myself out of the broken window, and hobbled out onto the icy steps. I worked quickly, fastening the snowshoes to my boots and locking my foot in securely before sliding off down the driveway.

The icy wind was blistering on my cheeks. I paused, realizing these were my last moments at the chalet. There’s a chance I would die out on the mountain, a chance Tav already had, but life in lockdown Hell wasn’t for me. Whether my captor was Tav, or a deranged stranger, I couldn’t stay to find out.

With quick steps, I set off down the driveway, eyes on the faint tracks the mountain man had left just minutes ago. I moved softly but swiftly, eager to glimpse him from a safe distance. My only hope was following him out of here. If the wind or a storm came, I could lose his tracks in a matter of seconds.

My heart rattled as I realized I hadn’t fully thought through the consequences of venturing out onto this unforgiving mountain in winter-like conditions. Just as the path of the driveway fell below the ridge and my view of the chalet dropped out of sight, I was surprised to find the mountain man’s tracks had crested over a small snowbank and moved away from the driveway.

One minute into this journey and I was already off-road.

I cringed as I struggled to follow the tracks his snowshoes left, his strides wide and forcing me to find a rhythm somewhere between a fast walk and a jog. The exercise felt good, and the stretching of my tight muscles from sitting inside for so many weeks was a welcome change. It felt like part of me had atrophied, or many parts. Maybe that had been one of my coping mechanisms, even with Tav — shutting down and tuning out until the memory itself atrophied.

I thought of my nightmare last night, only this one a figment of reality. Life with Mom had been oftentimes chaotic and sometimes outright traumatic, particularly when she was missing him.

I blinked as the sound of his boots drew closer. “Look at you, pretty girl, dressed in your Sunday best just for me.”

My heart rate spiked as I forced my snowshoes to move faster. I couldn’t keep letting these lost memories plague me. I was torturing myself, and the only thing worse was that I might not actually catch up with the mountain man, and then I’d find myself lost on this mountain and alone with my thoughts. Most people can’t handle having their dark hearts laid bare.

I slipped then, the tip of my snowshoe sliding off a rock I hadn’t seen buried under the snow.

Kill or be killed.

I took a deep breath, using my ski pole to poke around my next step. I stopped at the edge, unable to see where the man’s tracks went from here. Had he simply jumped down? Or backtracked and went another way when I was lost inside my own head?

“Why are you following me?” His voice was thick, like the snarl of a wild animal.

I didn’t answer, turning to find the stranger at the edge of a stand of evergreens.

His eyes were hard, trained on me like he might pierce my heart with an arrow and claim the meat for his own.

I miss my old life.

“Answer me or else.”

“Or else what?”

His eyes narrowed, forehead furrowed before he took fast strides across the bank of snow and leaned in close to my face.

His breath smelled like jerky and chewing tobacco. “Or else I leave you on the mountain to die.”

I backed away, forgetting I was on the edge of a rock, and fell backwards off the edge. I landed in another giant drift, snow cradling me easily as I barely cracked the thick crust of ice that lay on top.

“I need to know why you’re helping me.”

“Why? You’d die up there if I didn’t. Is this your way of saying thank you?” He leaped down after me, agile despite his body’s wide breadth. He wore what looked like a real fur around his neck, something he’d caught or trapped out here, no doubt. Was it a wolf pelt? This man was a dominant predator on this mountain and I might be his next prey. Had Tav encountered him too?

I slipped out from under his massive form and struggled to my feet. I clambered for the ski poles, my only protection against him.

“What’s your name?”

“None of your business.”

“Who told you to bring me food?” I pressed, needing his answers.

“Don’t know.” He spun, heading off down the mountain again. I struggled to keep up, finding it easier to land each of my steps inside his larger ones.

“Do you live up here? Are there more of you?” I cringed at my last question.

“More of me?” He huffed, casting me a sideways glare before turning back. “You mean how many neighbors have you got up here?”

I nodded, hating the shrinking feeling he gave me.

“There are more.” He was off again, tracking away from me. “Mostly trappers livin’ off grid, but ask any of them for directions and they won’t let on none the wiser. If you see them, that is. The men that live up here are only seen when they want to be.”

He was so at home here while I was so out of place, it rattled me. He rattled every nerve I had, and yet my entire existence relied on him the further we walked from the chalet.

“How many hours away?” I asked.

He laughed. “Hours? Guess this is your first time on the mountain then?”

I didn’t answer. When he didn’t continue, I finally mumbled that it was my first and would be my last.

“We’re about forty-five minutes out from my cabin, if that’s where you’re going.”

I had nowhere else to go, and at least knowing I was less than an hour from the nearest . . . what? Neighbor? Did mountain men have neighbors? Could I rely on him to save my life if it came down to it? I was pretty sure I had only myself to pull me out of this one.

“Will you tell me about the man that told you to bring me food?”

The mountain man paused, squaring on me fully. “He was alive last I saw him.”

“When was that? The last time?”

He pushed a palm through his beard. “Few days after he paid me to share my rations with you I saw him on television. News stations replayed the footage of him walking out of the woods over and over, like he was some goddamn hero. I couldn’t understand it, it wasn’t like he survived anything.”

“Wait, Tav was rescued? Was he on skis?”

“Sure was. Looked like he’d just slalomed down Everest. The look on their faces was like they’d just seen Jesus. Your husband must be an important man.”

Frustrated tears pricked my eyes. “Did he tell them about me?”

“Tell them about you?”

“He said he’d rescue me, have them send a helicopter—”

The man shook his head. “No helicopter can land up here. Not with the wind that whips around these peaks. Your best bet is the ice bridge up around the corner of the pass. But that’s only safe for snowmobiles, that’s why I traded him for that little car you drove up here. Hauled it down the mountain and gave it a jump-start. Runs just fine, but that’s why I was surprised to see him on skis on the television. Where the hell is my snowmobile?”

“Wait, snowmobile? Trade? What are you talking about, Tav would never—”

“Listen, I don’t know who Tav is, but I’ve got a car at the house he signed into my name and a snowmobile that needs replacing. Life on the mountain all winter is about impossible without access across that ice bridge.”

“I feel like we have the wrong person.”

He shrugged. “Maybe the snowmobile broke down, was havin’ some issues with that belt the last few times I ran it.” His face turned tentative as he thought about it.

“Is he paying you to bring me food?”

“Of course he is, I wouldn’t share my winter provisions otherwise.”

“How much?”

“Thousand dollars a box. Sundays only.”

My nerves quaked as the implications of the arrangement settled over me. “Do you have other people you deliver boxes to on the other days of the week?”

He narrowed his eyes, a quick shake of his head. “’Course not.”

“Then . . . why do you address the boxes to The Sunday Wife?”

He held up his big paw-like hands. “Listen, I’m just following orders. I’ve got no interest in your personal lives.”

More tears threatened as my heart rammed into my ribcage.

“He set me up with a postal box in town for payments, didn’t expect the love letters too, but I guess if I was away from my wife for weeks on end it might be a romantic gesture.”

“Love letters? A romantic gesture? You mean the notes that come with the boxes?”

His face bled with exasperation. “Not in my job description to ask questions. He sends cash, I’ll put whatever he wants in the boxes.”

“So . . . you’re my caretaker?” I finally asked.

“S’pose so.” He was walking again, quicker than before. “Won’t be fixin’ that window you broke. You’re gonna feel it the first big storm that hits.”

“I don’t need a caretaker. Thanks for your help, but your services aren’t needed anymore.”

I heard his chuckle, but he didn’t bother turning to me. “Sure. How much food did you get at that fancy cabin, anyway?”

“Enough for at least a few months if I ration myself.”

“Last snow doesn’t leave until Fourth of July at this elevation. Rationing will get you starved up here. You have to be part of the ecosystem when you’re on the mountain.” He shoved a hand in his pocket, snapping off a piece of jerky and chewing before throwing it my way. “Welcome to Deception Gorge. It’s kill or be killed, sweetheart.”

Chapter 27

Tav was here.

That was my first thought as I came upon the small trapper’s cabin.

Our car, the small utility vehicle we’d climbed up the mountain in, now sat in the backyard of the trapper’s cabin.

“Did he give you a title or anything?” I asked.

The man stopped at his front door. “Sure did.”

He disappeared inside the small cabin and my mind whirled. What would that title say? And had Tav really been so desperate to survive that he’d been willing to sign over our car? Or had he done it to save my life? As part of the payment for my caretaking? Did this make Tav my savior or captor? And where was the gun?

A headache pressed at the base of my skull. I tossed my ski poles into the snow and worked my neck muscles back and forth with one palm.

The mountain man returned a moment later, a faded green scrap of paper folded in his palm. He passed it to me when he was near enough and I opened it, fingers shaking. He watched as I scanned the front side, confirming that it was the title to the car Tav drove, but instead of his townhome in Virginia Beach listed as the address, it listed an unfamiliar address in Alexandria. I flipped the paper over, eager to see his signature as if it would confirm his survival.

“That’s your boyfriend’s name?”

I nodded, a chilly tear cutting down my cheek. “That’s his signature.”

“Figured so.” He slipped the paper out of my hands and folded it neatly before putting it back in his top pocket.

“But that’s not his address.”

The man shrugged, walking back into the house without another word.

So now what?

I took a few steps closer to the car, peering through the darkened windows. I laughed at the thought of the burly mountain man behind the wheel of this sporty little two-wheel drive with hardly any horsepower. “Can I look inside?”

He stood at the doorway, jacket off and another piece of jerky in his paw. “Sure, but you won’t find anything. Cleaned it out before he left, said I could keep the rest. Wasn’t much. Few emergency flares and a box of receipts and pictures and junk.”

“Receipts?” I perked up. “Can I see them?”

“Threw them out.”

“Where’s your garbage?”

His guffaw echoed off the snowbanks around us. “Burned it.”

Deflated, I unbuckled my snowshoes, then propped myself on the front step of the cabin.

“Guess you’re stayin’ for dinner then.”

I didn’t reply, mind trying to work out why Tav had signed over his nearly brand-new car to this stranger just to bring me a box of jerky on Sundays. For the price of the car he could have hired an entire search team to come find me on this mountain, so why hadn’t he?

“Thought you might want to hold onto this, though.” He dropped another folded piece of paper in my lap. When I opened it, the letterhead of a real estate title company greeted me.

“He put the chalet in my name?” My brain struggled to understand why and how. He’d said this was owned by the department, a smart house in the beta testing phases that we could spend a long weekend at . . .

“Don’t know if it matters, but he told me what happened between you.”

Frustration laced my quiet reply. “Excuse me?”

“The baby. Losing your mom. He said you needed some time.”

“Some time?” My heart hammered wildly. “What does that mean?”

“I asked the same question,” he uttered. “Said he didn’t know, only that when it was right, you’d be ready to come down off the mountain. Said until then, you wanted peace and solitude to heal from all that loss you’d suffered.”

My palms itched and my vision blinked black.

My head hammered in my ears and the soft snowflakes that had started falling now twisted and cascaded in a confused kaleidoscope.

“No.” My throat was cracked, my voice jagged. “No, that’s not . . .”

But was it?

Did this stranger know more about what had really happened than I did? He cleared his voice. “He also said you’d run out of your pills and the doctor refused to refill them because he thought you were—” he cleared his voice again — “an addict.”

I shook my head, trying to chase his words away like annoying flies. I slipped a hand to my head, pushing my knit hat off and using it to dry the tears on my cheeks. “I don’t think that’s what happened.”

He nodded, then silently turned back into his cabin, reaching for a long rifle propped against the door jamb of the cabin.

My rifle.

The gun I’d spent days searching for at the chalet.

Chapter 28

Alexandria.

The word came to me in the middle of the night.

Alexandria was listed on the title, wasn’t it?

And Tav had mentioned helping his parents move, hadn’t he? To Alexandria.

Was it related? Maybe only because Tav had been between rentals when he’d bought the car and he’d listed his parents’ home address instead of his.

I turned to the fire, warmth crackling through my veins as I clutched the ski pole in one palm. The flames licked the darkened stone of the fireplace, the loud snores of the burly trapper, Bud, in the next room oddly comforting amid all this silence.

At least I couldn’t hear the wolves howling anymore.

I shuddered again just thinking of when they’d started up this evening just as Bud had fed me some of his venison stew. I’d cringed at both: the stew and the wolves. I hadn’t really conceptualized the actual wild animals outside my window when I was perched up in the chalet, but through Bud’s paper-thin walls, every yip and howl might as well have been on a loudspeaker.

I learned quickly he liked it that way.

And the stew.

I’d avoided all of the venison jerky in the boxes, but the smell that wafted through his fur-cluttered cabin was too delicious to pass up. He was heavy on the herbs, thick on the gravy, and generous with the biscuits. Bud could have been a short-order chef as far as I was concerned. I hadn’t eaten that well at the chalet once since I’d been there.

I’d made a joke about getting out to see the neighbors more often, but Bud had only grunted, shoveled more stew into his mouth, and grumbled, “The folks out here don’t take to company.”

I sighed, thankful and yet still a little scared of the man I’d shared stew with tonight. The man whose couch I slept on as dozens of varieties of wild creatures hung on every available space of the walls.

I sneaked the tiny folded photo out of the pocket in my rucksack and ran my fingers along the edges, squinting in the firelight to make out the expressions. My mother looked dreamy, far away in her baby-blue Sunday dress and short heels. Bradley was gap-toothed and joyous as he teased me about one thing or another and I laughed and pointed at something on the ground between us. A few people lingered on the steps of the church in the background, but their faces were too far away for me to even make out who they might be. My longing for Bradley ran as deep as the marrow in my bones.

He’d been my best friend for so long, I think I’d secretly punished him for leaving me for the military. First my mom, then Bradley; from this perspective my life over the last five years felt like a series of sad events, outside of meeting Tav.

I brought the polaroid closer to my eyes, working my lips back and forth as I wondered who had taken this picture of my family.

My mother stared at the photographer dreamily, the secret of the stranger reflected only in the lights of her eyes. I wished again for her to share her secrets with me — so many questions left unasked, so many reasons I still didn’t understand.

Were they all taken by Chuck? Had he really been a part of our lives from before I could remember?

I yawned, folding the polaroid back into its well-worn grooves when a tiny smudge over my mom’s right shoulder caught my eye. I’d thought it was dirt or a sun flare, but it looked like the shape of a person. Someone broad and tall, but not yet adult.

I scanned the angles of the shadowy face in search of familiar features. Maybe I was only experiencing the sense of humanness because the shadow took so much of a human form, but in truth it could have been the angle of a tree or fence.

It could have been anything.

But then why didn’t it feel like anything?

I slipped my fingertip along the shadowed edge, trying to determine if the hair was long or short, the jawline squared like an Ivy League star or just a smudge of nothing left to history. I could tell neither, but a shiver passed over me anyway.

Was someone watching Bradley and me after all?

Or was I going crazy again?

Chapter 29

A creepy chill ran through me as the sunrise crested over the mountain.

I stood at the only window in the trapper’s cabin, a thick, handknit blanket around my shoulders and a hot cup of grainy rocket fuel in my hands. The only thing that could put a smile on my face this morning after the restless night of sleep I’d had was the smell of his coffee. Thick as mud with bite as it went down, it seemed to call Bud from dreamland because as soon as the tiny pot bubbled on the stove, the snoring stopped and he was up and moving around a moment later.

I was planning my escape.

From the mountain or my life, I wasn’t sure.

According to Bud’s instructions, I was less than ten miles around the base of the mountain from the ice bridge that connected this island to the mainland. He assured me I could make it myself, as long as the weather held.

The problem was that he didn’t have a smart house to tell him the weather forecast. Bud had no access to the outside world and forecasted the weather by what he could see with his own two eyes outside his window. I didn’t find it encouraging when he explained that weather changed in a blink up there, with sunshine one minute and a whiteout the next.

“Sounds like you had a rough night by all the tossin’ and turnin’ happenin’ out here.”

I’d willed myself to sleep after discovering the faint shadow in the polaroid last night, but it shook me. I couldn’t deny that.

“Thinking about snowshoeing to the ice bridge today.”

“Looks as good as any day this week.” He poured himself a cup of coffee and planted himself in the single chair in his kitchen.

“We had a blizzard two days ago.”

Bud shrugged. “That only lasted an hour. Best thing you can do in that case is find yourself a landmark, tie yourself to a tree if you have to. That’s how people die out here, thinkin’ they can make it just a few more feet, but looks are deceiving on these cliffs.”

I thought of the rushing water that churned below the Deception Gorge suspension bridge. I wondered how many lives had been lost to its unforgiving wild over time. I hoped I wouldn’t be one of them.

“Figure you might want this,” Bud gruffed, interrupting my thoughts.

I turned to find him setting a small manilla envelope on the table.

I crossed the room and picked it up.

“Just a few things I found in the car, threw everything away that didn’t have a name on it. I’m assuming you’re Freya?”

I nodded, almost wishing I wasn’t. I wished so desperately that all of the last few weeks weren’t real. If that meant giving up my name and life, so be it.

“Got this good-luck charm for you too, it’s the last of my special breed.” He held something soft in his big palm. “It’s mink.” He sifted the small pelt in his fingers. “Warmest and softest you can get around here.”

I thanked him, tucking the pelt into my rucksack.

“Wrap that around your neck if the wind picks up, it can take the air out of your lungs if you don’t have something to protect yourself.”

The softness and warmth in his eyes reminded me of the way a concerned dad might look at his daughter. Something I’d never felt until now, I thought with a wry smile.

“Thank you, again. I can’t thank you enough.”

“My pleasure, Freya.” He waved once, then stood from the table, finished his coffee, and dropped the mug in the sink. “I don’t know much about what went on up top of that mountain—” he turned and held my eyes as he spoke — “but I know whoever the man was that walked away from it has darkness in his heart, and no good can come from that kind of darkness. Watch yourself, not just in the woods, but when you get back to civilization. Men are the most brutal predators — don’t forget that.” Then he walked back into his room and closed the door with a soft thud.

I heard the shower kick in a moment later.

I finished my own cup of coffee, rinsing it and his out in the sink and then tidying the couch I’d tossed and turned on all night.

I had my stuff together and was strapping it all to my back five minutes later. A moment after that, I was strapping the snowshoes to my boots and driving out into the shadowy pink sunrise. The only thought on my mind was that it would be up to me to rescue myself.

One step at a time.

Chapter 30

I failed to recognize the fissure that opened between Tav and me before it was too late.

I didn’t know when exactly was too late. Maybe after the miscarriage? Or before my mother had passed? Was it Bradley’s return to my life? Had the fracture between us begun with a hairline crack long before that? It felt deeper than the gorge that cut through the mountains and severed this island from the rest of civilization.

Were Tav and I that far apart? Would I have met Bradley at the bar that night if we weren’t? Or was this all a matter of my subjective viewpoint? A medicated shut-in afraid to live life because life bit back too hard? Was I imprisoned on this mountain, or only acting entitled like Bud had not so subtly suggested? My thoughts when it came to Tav had a way of twisting themselves around until I wasn’t sure which was the right way up.

If I’d been more open with myself and Tav, would I even be at Deception Gorge? If I’d acted differently, would I have stumbled into a different outcome? My first regret was not walking out the door with Tav that sunny morning. My legs were strong, my balance good and well-adapted to the snowshoes at this point. If anything, he was the one with a vulnerability. His twisted ankle put him at risk, so why would he ask me to stay back?

My mind spun away with every possibility.

I slumped against a giant boulder, leveraging myself up on a small edge that fit perfectly as a seat. I unzipped my pocket, pulling out a jerky strip and tearing it with my teeth.

Something inside me felt spoiled then, always unsure of what I really wanted, just like Tav often said. He’d told Bud I needed a break. It was true. I’d lost almost everyone that mattered — maybe raw solitude was exactly what I needed to find myself again.

I took in the iced-over suspension bridge in the distance, at least three cables whipping heavily in the wind. A fourth looked ready to snap any minute. I thought it was ironic that they’d tried to subdue nature with a modern arch of cables and steel when men like Bud relied on the ice bridge and boats to come and go in the years before they’d erected the crossing.

I leaned back against the boulder, remembering Bud’s instructions: Just over the pass, a few hundred yards beyond Deception Bridge, a large boulder is your map marker to hang a hard right. Follow the line of cedars, avoid the cliff path because of false bottoms and winter erosion, and come out right at the mouth of the ice bridge and the other side of the pass.

I groaned, calculating I had at least two hours left to hike before I cleared the far side of the island.

I dug deeper into my pocket, in search of the small bag of dried fruit and nuts I’d stashed inside, when my fingers found the edges of the envelope Bud had handed over earlier. I brought it into the light, flipping it once and opening the sealed edge easily. The first thing I noticed were the three loose pills shaking around inside. They must have fallen out of my purse in the car.

I shook them into my palm now, wondering if I needed them, if they did my head any good. Were my memories clearer or hazier with these tiny white marvels? I tucked them into the pocket of my hiking pants, zipping it closed for safekeeping.

Bud’s words about addiction came back to me then. I hadn’t expected that, and I wondered why Tav might say it. Was he right? Maybe he’d already discussed this with my therapist — she’d often mentioned a couples’ retreat would do both of us good. In the early days of our relationship Tav had made a joke that therapists feed off lonely people. Was he right? He’d met me at my appointments on the rare occasions I’d asked — his drive from the city was always during rush hour and took him twice as long as it usually did. He’d always shown up with a smile, but now I wondered why. At one point my paranoid mind had conjured an affair between Tav and my therapist, stolen glances and flirty smiles as they whispered about my fatal flaws and fuck-ups behind my back.

Tav was my hero, so why did he haunt me too?

Looking for a distraction, I tore off another bite of jerky and pulled out an even smaller envelope stuffed with lined paper from a spiral-bound notebook. Some of the edges looked singed by fire, but most seemed intact. I flipped them over, heart dropping when I recognized the generous loops of my mom’s cursive handwriting.

My stomach twisted as I began to read.

Freya,

I have so many regrets. There are so many things I wish I would have said.

I’m sorry I could never tell you the one thing you wanted to know.

I promised to die with the secret on my lips, and I will. Even if it tortures me. Don’t let it torture you. Please don’t let my next words alarm you.

I’m being followed.

Maybe I shouldn’t send this letter, I’m certain this would put you in harm’s way. If anything happens to me, Freya, know that I love you.

I love you so much.

I’m sorry for everything — the things you remember and the things you don’t.

xo Mom

Chapter 31

I stuffed the letter into my backpack, wondering how it had found its way to Bud’s cabin. I had so many questions. I strapped my backpack over my shoulders, hopped down on my snowshoes, and headed for the opposite side of the clearing, the edge of my shoe tripping on a boulder mounded under a few inches of powdery snow.

Every towering tree and snowbank left me with a sense of vertigo. This place was a winter wonderland funhouse, the effects leaving my head pounding and my eyes blurry. I broke out of the clearing, the ridge and the ocean churning far below a welcome relief that helped balance my perception. I walked closely along the evergreen boughs, keeping clear of the cliff’s edge before the tree-line edged around a corner. I looked up just in time to see a hunched figure ducking into a small trapper’s cabin.

Bud hadn’t mentioned neighbors on the journey. In fact, he’d specifically given the impression I was better off avoiding them.

I hovered at the edge of the trees, wondering if I’d taken a wrong turn somewhere. I struggled to remember Bud’s exact words.

When a man used so few words, every syllable was important.

I took in the crumbling roof, shards of ice clinging to the edges and nearly touching the snowbank at the base. One dark window looked out like an eye over the tiny clearing. I shuffled back and forth, wondering if I could cross this clearing at the far edge and not bring attention to myself. The only alternative was tracking backwards and circling around the edge of his property through the trees. It would be so much easier to follow the water, no way could I miss the ice bridge then.

A shudder passed through me as the smell of charcoal lingered in the air. Just as I was about to turn and head back, a series of yelps and snarls bounded around the trees, followed by a long howl. I froze, plastering myself against the tree, thinking civilization sounded not so bad right now.

A dark figure sprinted through the trees, shadows playing tricks on my mind as every muscle in my body bunched and surged with the desire to run.

Don’t run.

Don’t run.

Another shadow, this one fully black and with a longer gait moved closer. It darted between the evergreens like a ghost, almost as if it was playing hide and seek with me.

“Don’t run,” I muttered, fingernails clutching at the bark of the tree at my back. “Don’t run.”

A third figure, this one tall and gray, bounded from underneath an evergreen, its eyes nailed on mine.

I yelped, swinging wildly with my ski pole and striking it once along the hindquarter. I must have scared it away just enough, because it yipped and spun back into the woods, running in the opposite direction to me.

Heart screaming with the momentary victory, I chose that moment to run across the clearing, making it just to the opposite tree-line when the trapper pushed out of his cabin door, old rifle in his arms, and shot into the air three times.

Tears streamed from my eyes. I tried to steady my breath, even though my lungs were in meltdown. I was as far removed from civilization as it's possible to be out here. Wolves. People. Mountains. Wilderness. Life. The longer I was a part of that world, the less I felt like I belonged in the other one. My natural survival instincts have been awakened; either I become an apex predator, or I become the prey.

Another long howl followed by a series of yips and snarls sang through the tree limbs then.

“I only have a few hours to get off this island, I won’t let a few wolves stop me.” I clutched at both of my ski poles, prepared to use them for a weapon if I needed, on either man or beast.

I waited until the trapper disappeared inside his house before I sped across another smaller clearing. I reached the opposite side that followed along the cliff’s edge, and drew in a relieved breath when I saw a steep bridge built out of fallen trees and logs and evergreen boughs across what was probably a beaver pond.

That had to be the ice bridge.

It glistened in the sunshine, the ocean water that bubbled and pooled at the base was forced back out into the bay by the whirlpool motion of the water.

I had a few hours left of sunlight to get across that bridge, and what I’d find on the other side I wasn’t sure, but surely it couldn’t be too far before I ran into a village or town or convenience store — modern life.

I snapped a piece of jerky between my teeth and chewed, thankful that the worst of the trek was behind me.

Next stop, home.

And then after that, Tav.

I needed answers that only he could provide, and if he didn’t provide them, I would at least get my pound of flesh. I didn’t know if I had it in me to kill the man that abandoned me on that mountain, but I didn’t know that I didn’t either.

Chapter 32

“Help!” I shrieked. The wind caught my plea, flinging it over the edge of the ice bridge and drowning it in the waves below. I waved frantically at a tiny fishing boat that trawled in slow circles. “Help me!”

I couldn’t make out whether the crew had seen me. I gave up, turning my eyes back to the narrow bridge of crested ice that shot out of the ocean. I gulped, thankful for the flimsy ropes that worked as railings to help me across. Two deep grooves, just barely the width of my feet, were worn into the slick ice. I wore my snowshoes on my back, crisscrossing them to try to keep their weight balanced on my body.

I swallowed down the fear balled in my throat and slid my feet along the ice. I didn’t dare lift my foot for fear of slipping, but sliding across the hundred-yard bridge, slick with warming ice and bright sunlight, was taking longer than I expected.

I heard the boat in the distance gun its motor. I paused, throwing my hand in the air in the hopes they saw me again, then groaning when they trawled in the opposite direction. I fought back tears, wondering if the wolves had ever crossed the bridge, and if they could smell my fear now and chase me down. My fingertips began to shake, with either the cold or the adrenaline, before the toe of my boot caught the edge of the ice wrong and sent me sliding. I cried out, holding on tightly to the rope.

“I need a drink. Oh, please, get me off this bridge and to the largest alcoholic drink . . .”

I slid my boot another step along the ice, saying a silent prayer as I continued past my near misstep. My legs found a slow rhythm, my mind focusing out of sheer will. The next time I looked up, I found myself approaching the other cliff.

The mainland.

Tears of happiness hit my cheeks as my toe landed on granite again. I took another step, pushing myself away from the ice bridge and the bay below. I wiped the tears from my face, determined to find a person before nightfall. If I could find my way into a town I could find a hotel or . . . what?

I thought of my phone then, praying for better reception than I’d had on the island. I needed a map, something to point me in the direction of civilization. I had two hours of natural light left, and that’s if I avoided the deep woods. Following the coastline would probably be safer but could also take longer.

I cringed, hating that I hadn’t gotten my bearings on the map in the chalet before leaving. I almost missed the warmth and luxury it provided, even if I hadn’t used either much. I thought of a warm fireplace, a hot drink, and a soak in the jetted tub. I laughed at myself then, wondering what I would say when I checked into the first hotel I came across.

I paused to take a drink from one of the water reservoirs. I’d nearly emptied the first one, with any luck I wouldn’t need the others. My tiny trek through the wilderness over in a single day, with the help of Bud and the bridge. I imagined coming back to Deception Gorge and thanking him at some point, but then shuddered at the thought of ever seeing this place again.

I took off down the path that followed the cliff, keeping my eyes on the horizon as I tested each step with my ski pole. I paused after a few steps when the crusted snow gave way to powdery drifts near an open section of trees.

I saw the trawler in the distance, probably headed home for the evening as the first streaks of orange crisscrossed the sky.

I hurried to strap my snowshoes to my feet, regretting I’d taken the time to eat at the first bridge. Walking through these woods at night wasn’t a memory I wanted, but at least I knew there was life nearby.

I snapped the snowshoe buckles into place, picking up my pace when I set off through the snow again. I worked my ski poles, feeling my thighs burn after a few minutes. I trained my eyes on the coastline in the distance, imagining the tiny seaside village that might appear just around the edge of the next bend in the cliff. I moved faster, encouraged when another boat appeared on the horizon, making its way slowly into the same port. It disappeared around the same bend, and tears of joy began to hover at the corners of my eyes again.

Almost home.

I could feel it in my bones.

I broke around the bend then, the evergreens splitting to reveal a town, much smaller than I’d imagined, and far more charming. A few warm yellow street lights already twinkled at the end of a long dock, people and cars moving down the singular main street that curled along the bay.

“What is this place?” I hummed, smiling, turning my lips as I moved quicker across the snow, snowshoes no longer holding me back but shuttling me closer and closer to the hustle and bustle ahead of me. I reached the bottom of a small dip, catching the end of the street before it dead-ended at the rocky cliff.

Welcome to Seaport.

Population 600.

I read the sign over and over, wondering where exactly Seaport was. I continued walking, eyes on the busier downtown section that this street led to. I grinned, unbelieving of my luck when a sign grew larger.

Seaport Motel — Vacant

“Seaport, how cute.” I slipped my gloves off my hands, then freed my feet from the snowshoes and stepped out of them. I carried them over my back the rest of the way to the front steps of the Seaport Motel.

My new home for the night.

I imagined bursting through the doors and screaming at the top of my lungs that I’d been kidnapped. I needed the police, the secret service, and federal agents to track down the man that had left me at the top of that mountain to die alone. I curled my fingers around the door-knob, forcing my brain to push forward as I stepped into the motel lobby.

A heavyset man with a long dark beard was hunched over the reception desk focused on something out of my view.

“Hello?” I ventured, unwilling to turn back now.

He jumped from his chair and rubbed his palms together. Two little bags of white pills sit on the desk. I had the distinct sense that I'd just interrupted something I'd rather not know more about. He grinned widely, two teeth missing from his smile. “A beautiful day for snowshoeing!”

I jumped in my boots.

“Y-yes,” I agreed quickly, pushing my knit hat further down my brow. “Do you have a room for the night?”

“Sure do. We’ve always got room. Forty-five dollars a night, just started our special off-season rate.”

I passed him my credit card.

“Cash only.”

“Cash only?” I panicked, searching through the folds of my small wallet for dollars. “Is that even a thing anymore?”

“It is here. Some teenagers screwed me in chargebacks, so I made cash king again.”

“Nice.” My hands trembled as I finally wedged a tightly folded hundred-dollar bill I kept for emergencies out of my wallet.

“The last guest, was he tall with dark blond hair and dark blue eyes?”

The man behind the counter cut me an interested look. “Maybe.”

“Did you get his name?”

“Don’t ask for names when you pay in cash.” He slammed my change on the counter, the key to my room on top of it. “If you see him, tell him he owes me forty bucks for the dirty movies he ordered on my account.”

“Your account?” I tucked the bills back into my wallet.

“Sonuvabitch hacked my wi-fi.”

I froze for a moment. Then, clasping the key in my hand, I backed away from the counter, waving once at the man.

He waved back, lifting a stack of newspapers off the desk as he grumbled something I couldn’t hear. A familiar face on the front page caught my eye.

“You son of a rotten motherfu—”

The man’s face twisted as I advanced on him.

“Can I have that newspaper?” I seethed.

“This? Not supposed to sell it, it’s a day old. Never got today’s paper though, so I figured—”

“I don’t care about that,” I tore one of the papers from his hands, unfolding it quickly. It was an article about someone running for office. I searched the text for Tav’s name, trying to figure out why he would be on the campaign trail smiling with some politician. I glanced at the grainy black-and-white image, wondering if I was seeing things again.

“Maybe it’s not him.”

“Oh, that’s him alright.” One fat stub of a finger nailed Tav’s face on the newspaper. “Same asshole that hacked my wi-fi. Forty bucks — tell him I’ll find him if he doesn’t pay me.”

I nodded, yanking the newspaper out from under his hand and backing away again. “I don’t think I know him after all, my eyes are playing tricks.” I stopped at the door, motel room key clutched in my pocket and the ski pole quivering in the other hand. “Have a good night.”

He waved me off, eyes glazed with anger.

Fear shook my limbs then. Not fear of this place, but fear of what I was capable of when I finally had my chance to confront Tav. The man I once loved who’d orchestrated my undoing one perfect lie at a time.

Chapter 33

Maine

What felt like the top of the world was the tiny northern village of Seaport, Maine. I flipped the newspaper in my hands, reading the article again as I sat on the bed. The hotel room was dark with a thin layer of dirt, the bedspread a muted color that could hide any number of horrors. But it was freedom.

And I had some questions.

By the time I reached the bottom of the article I was no closer to understanding why Tav’s face appeared in the crowd on the front of the photo. And why did they share the same last name? Could Tav be related to this man? What I had confirmed was that this particular politician was scheduled for campaign stops all up and down the Maine coast this week, the final stop not far from here in a fishing village further down the coast.

I knew where my first stop out of Seaport would be.

I pulled my phone out of my backpack then, scrolling to the settings in search of the internet. A few protected connections popped up, along with one that was wide open. I attempted to connect to it, and when the bars indicated it had, I pulled out a search engine and typed in the politician’s name: Senator Garrison and Alexandria.

I didn’t remember the exact address on the title from Bud’s cabin, but I wished now I had.

When the search engine failed to load, I half grinned wondering if Tav had been here, going crazy trying to find a reliable connection. I turned my phone off, tossing it on the nightstand next to me as I imagined calling the first taxicab company listed in the phone book in the morning.

I had a helluva lot of questions to ask. I pushed my hands into my pockets, emptying the contents and then digging through my rucksack to find the letter from my mom. I have so many regrets.

Alexandria.

Accidents.

Investigators.

Foul play.

Alexandria.

“Mom,” I breathed, suddenly remembering one of the investigators the day after her death asking if I knew anyone from Alexandria. I’d forgotten that detail until now because I hadn’t known anyone from Alexandria then. But now . . . maybe I did.

“Your mother’s last phone call was from someone with a registered business address in Alexandria. There could be foul play, the burns aren’t consistent with an accident—” I’d hung up then.

I couldn’t stand to hear anything more about the accident that stole my mom’s life. It was that night that the cramps had begun, lasting through the night and into the next day. One week later my prenatal check-up confirmed that there was no longer a heartbeat. I could have told them as much myself. How could that little baby’s heart continue to beat when mine had all but ceased?

The therapist had upped the dosage on my medication in the days following the miscarriage. And Tav had held my hand as I cried. I cried for the loss of my mom, of our baby, of a future I didn’t know was mine to lose. While the tears may have dried on the outside, inside I hadn’t stopped. Maybe that’s what had sent Tav driving into the wilderness away from me. My inability to cope was rearing its gnarled head again.

But what did Alexandria have to do with the accident? Nothing? Or everything?

Chapter 34

She ordered eggs at the café. She pushed them around on her plate after taking one bite, and then let them get cold as she scanned the headline of the local paper again.

She looked worried, rushed, continuing to gaze around, constantly on edge. She should be. This was far from over and she was too fucking naive to know how bad this could be.

I sighed, hoping she’d wrap up soon so I could get on with it. I checked my watch as she sipped her coffee with a soft frown.

Affected by another man. Burned by love. Women never asked the right questions.

A bright white van pulled into the loading spot, obscuring my view of Freya. I grunted, having half a mind to run down there, pull out my nine-millimeter, and tell them to get out of the way, or else.

I groaned when two guys in uniform jumped out and began unloading a dolly and crates of supply boxes before delivering it into the café.

“Dammit.” I slipped from the car, moving quickly across the street. My shoe hit the opposite curb and my eyes finally landed on the table where Freya had sat a moment ago.

Empty.

The busboy was already clearing her table.

Only Freya’s eggs and a half-drunk cup of cold coffee remained.

Where the fuck was she?

My eyes traveled the other faces obscuring my view down the sidewalk. I shuttled forward on heavy feet before I was close enough to see over the heads. Three waiters, a busboy, the hostess, and a half-dozen diners lingered in the small outdoor seating area.

She was gone.

“Where did she go?” I grabbed a waiter by the elbow and growled as I stepped into the suffocating circle of mundane chatter. The group paused, eyes on me. Damn, I hadn’t meant to bring attention to myself, only this was the first time she’d been out of my sight in weeks.

In the blink of an eye, I’d lost her.

“Where did who go?” A waitress entered my vision.

“The woman who was sitting right here, where did she go?”

“I guess that depends who’s asking. You some kind of stalker or somethin’?” The waitress was small compared to me, but the threat in her voice was enough to make me step back. She turned and looked at another waitress. “We may need to call the police.”

I held up my hand, anxiety chilling my veins as I realized my cover was blown. I stuffed a hand into my front pocket, itching to run the other way and find Freya before she made a dire mistake. “Ma’am, please.” I lowered my voice. “I’m an informant and that woman is in danger.”

“An informant?” She narrowed her eyes. “And just who the hell do you inform?”

I clenched my teeth, my next words barely above a hum.

“The FBI.”

Chapter 35

The Third Sunday

I watched rapt as he warmed his palms and then pushed them into an expensive wool coat. The fine navy fibers were cut to his knees; dark suit pants and leather wing-tipped shoes finished off his campaign trail attire.

I’d never seen him look so polished.

He turned then, a warm smile coming over him as he spoke to a woman in a sleekly cut skirt suit. She held her smartphone out, and the two of them took a photo together. He winked and waved as she backed away.

I studied the strong cut of his jaw, considered the warm, intimate way he smiled back at that woman in a way that I’d always thought was reserved only for me. Who was this version of Tav that I’d never met before?

I glanced down at my phone, teeth cutting into my bottom lip as I hit submit on the California records request I’d just ordered online. I closed the web browser, disconnected from the café wi-fi, and then turned on the video recording before sliding the phone into my pocket.

I had questions to ask Tav, about a thousand of them, and I planned on doing it at just the right moment and recording it all.

I walked across the main street of the small seaside town. The cab driver had dropped me off at the café across the street from where the small political rally was scheduled and parked further up the next block. He leaned against the back of his cab, disposing of the coffee cup in hand as he watched the crowd of a few hundred people gather closer to the stage.

I reached the sidewalk just in time to hear Tav’s name announced at the podium.

I angled around the crowd, some with signs expressing their support for various political issues. I tuned all of them out when I heard Tav’s rich voice over the cheap speakers.

“It’s good to be on the coast of Maine!” Tav waved and some of the crowd clapped.

He began to talk about technical advancements and scientific discoveries that could change the lives of every citizen forever. He lost me on much of the jargon as I zeroed in on the woman he’d taken a photo with earlier. Her high, angular cheekbones and waves of chestnut hair were familiar. I struggled to recall the exact features of the therapist Tav had found for me last year when I was struggling with so much loss. Could it be her? And why? Was she part of the undercover plan to lock me away too? An undercover therapist prescribing me medication that worked like horse tranquilizers and now acting as a Campaign Barbie at his side? My mind blurred and muddled with the storm of possibilities. I recognized grandiose thinking and shades of paranoia when it came on, but that wasn’t relevant to this — she was too familiar.

She beamed as she watched him, taking notes every now and again as he spoke. She nodded her head along with the crowd, and even silently repeated some of the words as he said them. Like she’d heard this speech before, like she’d written it. Tav could never communicate this eloquently, but his delivery was impeccable. The sharp cut of his jaw and slicked side part of his hair gave him a young Kennedy freshness, and the sparkle in his eyes clearly translated to this crowd. They chuckled along with his jokes and clapped as if on cue — he had them wooed. Just like he’d had me.

By the end of his speech, Tav’s voice had swelled with emotion. His tone cracked for a moment before he murmured, “Thank you everyone for your support. It wasn’t far from here and not long ago that I stumbled out of these woods not knowing if I’d live or die. I felt your love. Every kind word and card and prayer has made all of the difference to me.”

He held a hand over his heart, bowed his head, and mouthed the words “thank you” again, before backing away from the podium and waving.

A shudder skittered through me when the woman in the elegant pantsuit came to his side, circling an arm around his waist and waving to everyone alongside him.

“Who is that?”

“Kimberley Keller, isn’t she beautiful?” a middle-aged woman at my shoulder answered me.

“Are they dating?”

“That’s what everyone is wondering, but they haven’t said so.”

I trained my eyes on the happy couple as I melted into the crowd. The name Kimberley Keller didn’t ring any bells, but then, why did the soft twitch of her smile? I slipped along the sidewalk, moving behind the stage that was decorated with red, white, and blue streamer paper. Just as Tav’s broad shoulders were ducking into the back of a black SUV, I pushed record on my phone and cleared my throat.

He turned, eyes wild the moment they landed on me.

“Hi, Tav. Seen any ghosts lately?” A grin I couldn’t help crossed my face.

“Frey—”

“Don’t Frey, me. What does the Sunday Wife mean?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He grunted, his eyes dark and stormy. A look I’d come to hate subconsciously, and now I realized why.

The look of his lies.

“Skipped your meds again, Frey?”

Rage flashed through me, my balled fists quaking as I prepared to pummel him with all of my force. Instead, he gripped my wrist and yanked me into the back seat with him. I fell in a heap across his lap. He slammed the door closed, locking it quickly, and then pushed himself across the seat.

“Back to the hotel, please,” he called to the driver. “We’ll talk about this in private.”

“No!” I spit, yanking on the door handle. The child locks kept me in. “No, let me out!”

“He won’t. If he hits the breaks, he’s fired. He knows that.” The driver never flinched, like he hadn’t even registered Tav’s words.

“Tav, what are you doing?”

“Saving your life,” he grit, eagle eyes angled on me. “Do what’s good for you for once and just listen to me.”

The car slowed a moment later. Tav’s door was opened by a man in a valet hat. “Evening.”

Tav nodded, threading our fingers together as he stepped out. I yanked my hand out of his but followed him anyway. The valet raised an eyebrow. I probably looked homeless next to Tav’s designer suit and leather oxfords.

I hated Tav then for making me feel so inferior with just a look.

We crossed the lobby and reached the elevator before he spoke. “How did you get off the mountain?”

“I snowshoed. How did you?” My tone was more accusing than I meant it to be. A frustrated look crossed his features. “This again?”

My hands trembled as the elevator shuddered to a stop. The doors swung open and he gestured for me to exit first. I did, but then turned. “You owe me an explanation. You left me to fend for myself on the top of that mountain in a strange house—”

“That’s your house, Frey.” Tav’s eyes turned warm. He paused at a doorway, sliding a key card out of his pocket before pushing the door open. We entered the biggest hotel room I’d ever seen. “You helped me pick it out — the brochure, don’t you remember?”

“The vacation brochure sure, but—”

“That wasn’t for vacation. I had a feeling those antipsychotics were leaving holes in your short-term memory—”

“What are you talking about? My memory is fine.”

“Obviously not.” He crossed the room and tipped a decanter of amber liquid into a crystal glass and emptied it in one swallow. “The video call with your mom’s estate lawyer the last week before we left for the chalet — you begged me to call in to the meeting to help you make sense of everything, do you remember that?”

I shook my head, confusion coursing through me. Maybe that helped explain why Tav had the letter and some of my mother’s personal belongings, but then . . . what other holes did that leave in my memory?

“I-I don’t think . . .”

“Jesus, Frey, you think my plan was to leave you up there?” He closed the distance between us. “I love you, I would never—”

“Then why the campaign trail? Why this, why now? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It all came together so fast, Dad just announced officially last week that he was running. Geez, Freya, after we lost the baby I did everything I could to make you happy but every day you fell further and further away from me.”

“No, I . . . I didn’t mean . . .” Confusion spun like a tornado through my system. What did I mean exactly?

The room. The photos. My childhood in polaroids all flashed before me.

“But my life — the wall of photos in the basement . . .”

Tav arched an eyebrow.

“Didn’t you see them? Someone has been watching me since . . . forever.”

“Frey, what the hell are you saying?”

He brought his hands up to cup my cheeks, concern swirling in his familiar brown irises. “I did my best to offer you the world, but it wasn’t good enough. You really don’t remember any of the good stuff, do you? The truth is, I lost you long ago to your heartache. I didn’t need couples’ therapy to tell me that.”

“So you’ve moved on?” I squeaked. “It’s the woman in the pantsuit, isn’t it?”

Tav dropped his fingertips from my skin. “She’s good on paper.”

“G-good on paper?”

“For the campaign, she’s good for the campaign. We haven’t announced anything. Dad’s campaign manager says the mystery is good for generating interest.”

“You d-dumped me for a Campaign Barbie to pat your arm and hold a clipboard?”

“It’s easier than . . .” He stopped, eyes cutting across the room to the window. Clouds clung to the wintery mountain peaks in the distance. I wondered if one of them was my mountain.

Storm clouds shrouded every angle.

“Easier than what, Tav? Easier than breaking up with me, treating me with dignity and respect and just telling me the truth?” Anger flashed across his eyes. “You’re not ready for the truth.”

“Try me.”

He arched a painfully cocky eyebrow, unused to me speaking up so boldly and making so many demands of him.

“Buying you a house in the mountains was easier than getting rid of you.”

My blood boiled. “Getting rid of me?”

Tav gnashed down on his teeth, that familiar look of quiet contempt crossing his features a moment. This was the stage where I usually shrunk under that gaze, conceded to whatever statement he was making just to clear the clouds from his face.

But not today. “I am your Sunday wife, aren’t I? You put me on the back burner for her — I can see it all over your face, Tav. How long has this been going on?”

He crossed to me in angry strides before cupping my chin in his fingers and forcing my eyes on him. “You’re hallucinating again. I signed that house over to you, your name is on the deed. Paid for in cash.” He stopped himself before pulling his gaze away from mine. “While you’ve been living every day in the past, life has marched on without you. I couldn’t stand by and watch you do it anymore. I asked you to move to the city with me, begged you to marry me at the courthouse even after the miscarriage, offered to spend more time at the house in Lancaster working remotely — you don’t remember any of that?”

I shook my head, blinking back tears. Was he right? Had I completely checked out of our future together?

“No, I . . .” I pushed a palm over my forehead, suddenly wishing for one of my little magic pills to carry my thoughts away and leave only sweet numbness in its wake.

“I still love you, Frey. I love you so much it scares me.” He dropped his chin to force my eyes on his. They shimmered with the calm, serene intimacy I loved so much about him. “From the moment we met it felt like I’d known you for a lifetime.” I blinked back the emotion in his words, flashes of Sunday school pictures playing like a reel in my mind. “I don’t know what I would do without you in my life.” The pad of his thumb was tracing my bottom lip then. I could feel myself succumbing to him, my muscles loosening as he acted like a drug on my system.

“I . . .” I swallowed, my throat suddenly constricted. “Tav, I . . .”

“I only wanted what was best for you. Even if you didn’t always see it, I did.”

More flashes of sepia-toned polaroids clouded my vision. Someone always lurking in the shadows.

“I’ll always watch out for you, Frey. From day one I’ve been watching out for you.”

I sobbed then, the stranger clinging to the shadows of the coffee shop the day I met Bradley again came back to me. The dance floor at the bar. Sunday school. “You have been watching me, haven’t you? Since before I even knew your name, you’ve been watching. My entire lifetime, you’ve been there, haven’t you, Tav?”

His eyes darkened.

“The photos in the basement of the chalet, the title of the car listed in Alexandria . . . my mom.”

His frown twitched. “Hm. You have been paying attention, haven’t you?”

Tav laced his fingers with mine, connecting us in a familiar gesture, but one that suddenly made my blood run cold. He’d always been able to twist his emotions around mine. I’d found it comforting before, like his ability to read me was his superpower. But could it be a flaw rather than a feature?

“With the solar power and top-of-the-line security, I could help ensure your safety. I could check in on you and provide for you. You were safe on that mountain. I can’t protect you now.”

“Why?” I tore away from him. “How long has it been, really? Was this some sick game? Were you always planning to make me into your sweet little Sunday wife, locked in a closet while you lived some other life with another family?”

Annoyance slipped over his features. “Oh Frey, you don’t know the half of it. You aren’t the Sunday Wife, you never were. Your mother was.”

Chapter 36

“My earliest memory is of my mom and dad fighting over you.”

“What are you talking about?” I spit.

“My dad always kept other women. Your mother was his favorite.”

“H-his favorite?” I gulped, a ball of angry tears clawing at my throat.

“My mother kept track, kept them under wraps, made sure they wouldn’t be a problem for his political career. She had her own dalliances too, but it were his that were the problem. Mom drank too much wine on the nights Dad came home, and instead of family bonding, they fought while I hid out in my room playing video games. The insults I heard them hurl at each other were far more vicious than the curses the other guys in the game used. Sometimes, escaping reality is the only way forward, but I’m sure you know that by now, huh, Frey?”

I hated my name on his lips. I hated that he hadn’t told me any of this before now.

“My mother was convinced for a while that you were my father’s bastard child. Your mom and my dad were sweethearts through all of high school. By the time my parents met in college, they’d gone their separate ways, but when Dad ran for local legislature his profile grew. He spent more time in the city and doing town halls across state lines. And he reconnected with your mom again. Mom suspected they were having an affair after I was born. By the time you came along and I was old enough to understand what they were saying . . . well, I knew I had to know the girl that was tearing my family apart. I hated you for a long time, Frey . . . until I saw you for the first time.”

My head ached with his admissions. Could I believe anything anymore? This man I’d trusted more than anyone else in my life was suddenly turning all of my memories upside down, shifting and interchanging my history like the pieces of a puzzle.

“You were dressed in your Sunday best, a white dress with tiny strawberries and red ribbons in your hair. You had so many freckles I knew you couldn’t be my dad’s kid — he passed on his dark olive skin to me and my brothers and sister, but you . . . you were fair and innocent. I knew how vicious he could be, I knew he would ruin you if your mom gave him the chance.”

I blinked back memories of hiding beneath a mattress, Chuck’s boots, and the smell of whiskey in the air.

“I was fifteen the Sunday I borrowed a friend’s car and followed him to the next town. I couldn’t believe it when he pulled into a church parking lot, and then I saw you and your mom come down the steps. The way her face lit up when she saw him, like she’d just been given the best surprise of her life. My mom’s face never lit up like that when Dad came home, not even after being gone all week working in Alexandria.”

Alexandria.

I remembered the investigator’s words over the phone about messages from a number in Alexandria. Had Tav’s father been working there all along? How had I missed that? And then I realized Tav had withheld that information from me on purpose. Tav was a senator’s son, and I was only collateral damage on the path to a political career for this family.

Just like my mom had been.

“I went every Sunday after that. Cringed as Dad took pictures of this other family that wasn’t mine, while Mom drank imported French wine and cried at home. I hated him, but it didn’t take me long to love you, Frey. I was so jealous of what you had with him for so long — I couldn’t understand it and I craved it at the same time. At first I thought there must be something about you that made him like you more than us. I had to get to know you to figure it out, but I never had the guts to actually talk to you. I picked up your hair bow one time, it had little ice cream cones with sprinkles printed on it and it went flying as Bradley pushed you on the swings. You were laughing too hard to realize and left without it. I still have it. Well, I did.”

I struggled to remember all of the mementos pinned to the wall. Many I had no memory of — they were Tav’s memories of my life.

“But why now? Why the photos?”

“I was so sick of living the lie, Frey. You thought you had such a close relationship with Bradley, but I’ve known you just as long. Our families have been connected even longer. My mother forced my father to take a blood test to prove his paternity. I have the paperwork; it’s negative, Freya. I don’t know who your real dad is, but I think my dad loved you like you might be his because of your mom. He . . . changed once life in the senate got ahold of him.”

“Chuck — he stopped visiting my mom all of a sudden. I can’t believe . . . is Chuck your dad?” I wiped at my wet eyes as I thought of the months of worry and heartache that consumed her the last time he left for good. “She never said why, but it broke her. We moved right after that. I think that’s why she moved to California, she needed a new life and she never really found it after he left. I still can’t believe . . .”

Tav’s eyes were cold, assessing me with none of the tenderness of earlier. “He had to leave, just like I did. There was no other way.”

“You didn’t have to do anything, what you should have done was tell me all of this the first time we met.” I slammed my eyes shut, thinking of our first official meeting in the art gallery. “I mean, at the gallery . . . it was all staged then?”

“No, I didn’t know you were going to be there, Frey. I let you live your life, I went to college and didn’t think twice, but when I saw you across the gallery I knew it was you. I could never forget you. The freckles and the dip of your neck.”

“You — you turned me into your own Sunday wife, Tav . . .” A shudder of disdain coiled in my stomach.

“No, that’s not what happened. If your mom hadn’t started that Me Too activism shit, none of this would have happened, I swear to you. She knew my dad was in a powerful position now and she tried to leverage their past to ruin him. It was brutal. He’s done too much good to boil it all down to one shitty affair years ago . . .”

“What activism? My mom never said anything about what you’re saying.”

“Why would she? Can’t imagine explaining herself as a serial homewrecker to her daughter would rate too high on her list of priorities. She had evidence though, mountains of photos and letters, I had to clear it all after you bailed on the investigation.”

“B-bailed?”

“After you hung up on the investigator, he called me. You gave him my number and told him to direct any questions through me. I handled all of the clean-up after your mother’s death, Frey. Don’t tell me you don’t remember that either?”

“You never said anything . . . did you go to California without me?”

“The investigator needed someone and you weren’t in a position to go after losing the baby.”

“You didn’t ask me?”

“You’d locked yourself in our bedroom for days, what was I supposed to do?”

I thought of the letter from my mother, Tav’s insistence that this was my mother’s fault. The threatening messages from a burner phone in Alexandria.

“I don’t believe you.” He arched an eyebrow. “I think you’re lying,” I spit defiantly.

“Explain this then.” He dug through his wallet and then tossed a yellowed newspaper clipping my way. It was folded neatly, like it hadn’t been touched since it was shoved in the slot between his ID card and his black Amex.

I unfolded the newsprint quickly, scanning the text for clues what this might be about, before my gaze landed on the face of a young girl. She was small, fine baby hair gathered into tiny pigtails that sat atop her head.

“See?”

“See what?” I hissed, exasperated.

“Look closer.”

I narrowed my eyes, bringing the paper up to my face as I gazed upon the chubby cheeks and cupid’s bow lips. The child was probably only eighteen months old at best.

“The mole above her lip. You can barely make it out, but it’s there.”

I squinted, swallowing as the faint birthmark was revealed through the black-and-white newsprint. I touched my face, fingertip hovering over my matching mole.

“What am I looking at?”

Tav stepped closer, pointing to the first sentence of the article.

Ramona Gerstein went missing from her home in Eagle Falls, Idaho, thirty-six days ago, is presumed deceased by local authorities.

“Who is Ramona Gerstein?”

Tav cleared his throat, waiting for me to scan the details of the article. She was playing in the front yard unsupervised, it said, while her mother made sweet potato pie the day before Thanksgiving when her father was still at work. It’s unknown how long she was missing before her mother discovered her gone. The local neighborhood was searched for days after her disappearance. Her troubled parents, Harry and Esther Gerstein, prayed the toddler had only wandered off, but as days passed, the child was presumed abducted.

“It’s you.”

“What? No, how could it be?”

“It is. My father held onto that clipping for decades. I found it with all of those photos. That’s why he kept an eye on you, not because you were his child — because you weren’t. Your mother took you from your parents. She abducted you, raised you as her own, maybe she even tried to convince my dad you were his, but he knew better. He knew your mother was a liar and . . . and he loved her too much to do anything about it.”

“No, my mom was—”

“A criminal. She was a criminal, Frey.”

I swallowed, realizing how his story was the last missing piece I’d been searching for all of my life. Why I always felt out of place, why my mother never told me details about my father, why she refused to settle in one place for too long and hated talking about the past. Why she never shared memories of my birth or early years. I’d always assumed she’d forgotten them, but in truth I’d lived all of my life without knowing my real identity.

“I wanted to tell you every day before now, but I was afraid it would ruin you, Frey. And then when my father decided to run for office . . . I knew it would ruin him. It felt better to keep the secret, or I dunno, maybe it just didn’t feel like my secret to tell.”

“You monster,” I seethed, folding the newspaper carefully and shoving it into my back pocket.

“Freya, I’m not lying.”

“I know you’re not. I don’t know how I know, but I trust you about this. It’s that . . . that you knew who I was more than I knew myself. Your father — that’s why you never introduced me. My entire life has been a lie and you and your father perpetuated it. I . . . I hate you.”

“I tried to do what was best for you but your mind was so fragile after you mother died and the baby. I even looked up your parents once, thought maybe I would book a ticket to visit them, but I didn’t have evidence. What would I say? I think I know who your daughter is? And they were dead by then anyway, they both passed away. I found their obituaries; they died six months apart and they never had another child after you, Frey. It destroyed me that they lived their entire lives never knowing their daughter was safe and lived a good life.”

“A good life? How could it be good when I didn’t even know my real name?”

The photos in the basement of the chalet flashed back to me then. The pigtails. The strawberry dress. The mole above my lip. I was Ramona, not Freya.

“She wasn’t a bad mother, Freya, she raised you to be kind and good and give back to the world.”

“She was a monster and you kept her secret. You and your father belong in jail for the secrets you’ve kept.”

Tav’s face turned dark then. “That’s not true, Freya. My father has done a lot of things, but child abduction isn’t one of them.”

“How do I know that? How do you? Maybe they planned this together. Maybe he was with her when she took me from my home.”

“I don’t believe that . . . but you’re right. I don’t know.” He paused, then pushed a hand over his face. “I only know what I witnessed. I know my dad finally ended it with your mom not because he wanted to, but because he had to. Your mom was already under surveillance when he ran for senate, she was on a watch list, and she only grew more bitter as his prominence in Washington rose. She finally found a way to wedge herself back into his life; she was willing to use anything to get his attention again, even if it meant lying or using you as a pawn. When she made the decision to write a book and go on a national radio show and talk about how men in powerful positions use their access to violate and manipulate women sexually—” Tav hesitated — “Dad’s hands were tied.”

“Tied?”

“She had too much access to his past, was too much of a liability. She had too many secrets, Freya. Dark secrets. Don’t you see, Frey? If the man is going to get elected, he can’t have any skeletons in the closet. Your mom was giving talks and readings of her book at local bookstores and talked about donating the money to local women’s shelters like some reformed do-gooder. She became a goddamn hero in that city, it was only a matter of time before the news broke that the man she’d had an affair with was a senator and the story of how she came to be your mother came out.”

“N-no . . .” I thought of the investigator’s words about some details of my mother’s death being inconsistent with an accident. “No, you . . . you did this? You took my mom from me?”

Tav shook his head. “Of course not.”

“But you know who did?”

“I don’t.”

“But you knew it was going to happen? Her accident was planned?”

Tav’s eyes held mine. “Your mother talked about running for local office. She was a fool. She would have been caught, and she would have implicated my father when she was.”

“She was a hippie psychotherapist that hated politics — she would never run for office.”

Tav sighed. “She started a new life in California, Frey, a life she never told you about.”

I thought of the dozens of photos pinned to the wall, her smile warm and inviting in all of them. Tears dripped from my eyelashes. My mother was so good at hiding in plain sight. So unassuming. So perfect on the outside, and rotten on the inside. “No.”

“Talking too much put her at risk.”

“No . . .” The slow realization that my mother was murdered overcame me. “No, no, no!”

“And you were next, Frey. Don’t you see? I saved your life when I brought you to the top of that mountain.”

Chapter 37

“I did my best to save you the heartache of knowing, Frey, you were just too damn stubborn to see it. Now you’ve gone and forced my hand. I tried to warn your mom — hell, I tried so many times with messages and letters and anything I could think of, but she just wouldn’t shut up. She could never let the past stay buried.”

“I can’t believe my entire life has been a lie.”

“Not all of it. I’ve loved you from the beginning.” He ran his thumb along my cheekbone. “Isn’t it reassuring? We’re more connected than we even knew. Our parents were rotten, but we’re the golden couple. Or we were.”

“Don’t touch me.” I wrenched away from the man I’d nearly married. “We’re not golden. I never had the chance to know my real parents. You lied to me!”

“Listen, I fought with Dad for weeks over this. I wanted to send in your DNA to the local police department; your parents were already gone, but at least it could close a cold case and the truth could come to light. But he explained that you and me — our families — are too complicated, and he’s right. A reporter would only have had to scratch the surface and they’d have found the connection between us. You were the last clue to handle and if I didn’t keep you under my thumb, well, you could blow his career.”

“Th-the last clue?” My hands quivered. “You’re a psycho, Tav. Do you hear yourself? You’ve been following me since I was a kid. You tried to lock me away on top of a mountain and I’m afraid to ask what you did or didn’t do when it came to my mom’s accident . . . You could go to jail for this.”

Tav shook his head, cocky grin turning his lips again. “How? I left everything to you, Freya. How can I lock you in a house that you own? I warned your mother that she was tangling with a beast she couldn’t control, but she chose not to listen. Where’s the crime? My only fault is loving you too much. I bought you the perfect paradise and now you’ve thrown it in my face over a cheap lover’s quarrel. Imagine the field day the media would have with that story. Imagine how they would twist your truth around to sell copies of their newspapers and clicks on their ads. Your addiction to the pills has reached another level, Frey.” He dipped close, lips at my cheek. “You’re acting so crazy you might need another stay at the treatment center. Don’t play the part of the scorned woman like your mother did, we were about to have a baby together. And then the tragedy of losing your mother stole the future from us. We were about to be married, Frey. If anything different comes out now, no one will believe you. The story has been set in motion.” His smile turned superficially pleasant. “After all, the medical records prove my side of the story. We break up and I give you a house as a parting gift and you retaliate bitterly like this? Can’t you see my hands were tied? There was no other way. Politics is like being at the top of that mountain: it’s kill or be killed. Hiding you up there was the only thing I could think to do to keep you safe, at least for now.”

“For now?” I seethed. “I thought we had the perfect life, but it was the perfect lie!”

Tav’s hands cupped my cheeks. “I’m sorry it ended this way. I do love you.” He leaned in close, fingers clutching my neck with a firm grip I wasn’t used to. “And really, Freya?” He caught my earlobe with his teeth. “The lawn guy?”

Chapter 38

“Sweet Freya. Politics is hell, ya know? Angels can’t fly with demons.” Tav’s grin turned pleasant, like his lofty words explained everything.

“What does that even mean?” I huffed.

“It means you’re too good for this world, too good for me.”

I clenched my teeth together, suddenly feeling every part the fool he made me out to be. “Fuck you, psycho. I can’t believe I almost married you. I can’t believe I almost married my abductor’s son.”

“It wasn't my father that abducted you, your mother managed that all on her own . . . is that what you came here to say? Revenge is what got you off that mountain?”

“You’re a stalker, just like your father! I know you followed me to the bar with Bradley that night, I know it was you watching in the corner!”

“I never trusted him.” His words were delivered so nonchalantly they sent a chill down my spine.

I gnashed my teeth together. “I hope I never see you again.”

“If you walk out that door, I can’t protect you,” he threatened.

“The only person I need protecting from is you!”

A cocky smile flashed across his face. “So naive.”

Before I could reach the door, his hand was at my elbow, pressing me into the wall.

I clutched at his forearm, digging at his fingers as my lungs contracted, desperately seeking air wherever it couldn’t be found. Tav was holding me captive and hyperventilation was starting to kick in. I dug into his skin until one of my nails broke, his grip on me unrelenting as he leaned into me with all of his strength to keep me pinned.

Stars splintered behind my eyelids before a burst of energy sizzled to life and I loosened one leg from his weight, cocked my knee, and drove with all the strength I could muster into his crotch.

He yelped, gripping tighter for a moment before I nailed him again with my knee and he stumbled back, one arm held out to block me from another assault. I turned, prepared to run for the door, when his hand caught my ankle and I fell. Scrambling against the hotel carpet, I crawled to the door and kicked at his form before he hauled me several feet across the room, my t-shirt yanking up in the process and leaving a stinging burn from the carpet.

I kicked and shouted, praying for someone to hear before he flipped me over in one motion, twisting my ankle painfully.

“I didn’t think you had it in you, Frey. I gotta say, I didn’t even think you had it in you to make it off that mountain, but here you are. Fighting for your life, finally.”

A glint of metal caught the sunlight, blinding me for a moment to his next move.

“It’s too bad it had to end so badly.” He lifted the handgun in the air, pointing it at my heart and then his temple. “It’s too bad it took you this long to realize I wasn’t your only enemy.”

His words rattled in my eardrums and I wondered if this was the last sight my mother saw before she took her last breath. I remembered then that she wasn’t my mother — that I’d never met the woman that gave birth to me. Did I look like her? I’d never know.

Tav’s sinister smile on the other end of a gun grounded me in reality.

“Fuck you,” I spit again, dodging between the wide stance of his thighs and then tipping him off balance with all of my might. He landed on the floor and with lightning speed I stomped on the wrist that held the gun until he yelped in pain. I yanked it from his grasp easily, holding it at arm’s length as I backed toward the door.

“Stop fucking with my head,” I breathed, watching him as I snaked my hand into the back pocket of my jeans and loosened the small syringe I’d hidden there. The tiny drops of liquid were powerful enough to take down a hippo — or a corrupt politician’s son. When I’d checked out of the roadside motel in Seaport, I’d stumbled into the owner selling what I thought was weed to a local teenager. When I’d told him I'd found myself in a bad position and threatened to report him to the police unless he helped me out, he’d given me a small syringe of fluid and told me to use it in the event of an emergency. A quick-acting deadly dose that might save my life. I didn’t think I’d need it but confronting Tav without any other weapon felt too risky. And now it might be the case that the motel owner selling drugs on the side could be the difference between my life and Tav’s.

“Good luck finding your husband,” he’d laughed as I’d walked away from Seaport, syringe filled with heroin tucked in my back pocket.

“I can’t believe I trusted you for so long.” I approached Tav, his eyes wide and shining as his gaze bounced between the syringe in one hand and the gun in the other.

“I’ve got a few surprises of my own.” I hunched at his shoulder and pressed the barrel of the gun to his temple. “It’s not just kill or be killed on that mountain, it’s kill or be killed period.”

His lips parted but before he could form another word I plunged the needle deep into the vein at his elbow.

“Thanks for everything, Tav. It’s been a fucking pleasure.”

I left the syringe dangling in his arm and stood, tucking the handgun into my bag and walking out the door.

The press would have a field day but I would be long gone by then. I grinned, following the signs for the exit as I walked down the hallway. I’d need to dispose of the gun, but I was confident I’d left nothing to implicate me.

And even if authorities did track it back to me, I was only defending myself. Tav was holding me against my will. I would take that statement to my grave, even if I wasn’t entirely sure it was true.

I reached the stairwell, descending it quickly and feeling like I’d finally entered the gates of Hell.

Tav had kept me sheltered. With every step forward I knew I’d never let anyone steal my power so easily again. Tav had underestimated me, again. I’d survived that mountain, survived the unknown and the other end of his gun barrel, but I wasn’t foolish enough to wish it ended with him.

My descent into the hellish truth of my life had only just begun.

Chapter 39

I hovered like a creep at a park across the street from the motel waiting for her.

She’d been quiet for hours. If I knew her at all, she would need a cup of coffee soon.

Night or day, Freya liked her coffee.

I would give her time alone if she needed it, but not without first ensuring her safety.

I shook my head, exasperated, feeling the shame of my own deceit weighing me down. Even after everything we’d been through. Maybe it was time to explain all of that to her. Tell her what I couldn’t before — that she wasn’t who she thought she was.

My eyes darted up to the corner room she occupied. I couldn’t imagine how she was feeling right now, but if I knew her at all, betrayal would probably be foremost in her mind.

She needed to come to her senses, and fast. I hadn’t betrayed her, not for a second. I’d kept secrets close to my chest out of necessity, for her own safety and mine, but betraying her was something I would never do.

She was everything.

She was the only human that had ever loved me without condition or malice. I’d throw my own body in front of a tank before I’d let anyone hurt a hair on her head, even if that person was me.

A light flickered on then, bringing me back to the present and catching my attention as, just like I’d predicted, her soft silhouette came into the small kitchenette.

She was captivating.

I thought of the first time I’d ever seen her, braids in her hair and tiny cherries on her dress.

She’d seen me that first time, she just didn’t know it. Her head had turned quickly, her dainty profile glowing in the bright Sunday afternoon light. Her eyes darted up to the sky, before eyelashes fanned her cheeks as she seemed to soak up the sun. Her chin wavered, and then her warm eyes flickered open, gaze landing directly on me at the edge of the churchyard.

Time ceased, the world vanished, and I fell into dark depths I’d never find myself free of. Like being caught in a vortex, I was rooted, stunned by something I’d never felt before and wasn’t able to place.

From day one I’d loved her.

Chapter 40

SENATOR’S SON DEAD OF OVERDOSE

I scanned the headline as I stood in line at the local coffee shop. The barista set a hot dark-roast coffee on the counter. “Ramona?”

I nodded, taking the drink I’d ordered. The name I’d decided to use to stay under the radar felt foreign. But it was mine. My plan was to return to Idaho, my birthplace, maybe visit my birth parents at the cemetery and then go to the local police with everything I knew about me, which wasn’t much, but maybe my DNA could at least prove Tav’s story.

I didn’t need the proof though, I had all the clues I needed. My mother had never once shown me a baby photo, as if my life began at eighteen months and not a moment before.

“Welcome to Portland.” The young barista grinned at my Harvard hat. I’d picked it up at a secondhand store to help disguise myself as I decided how I would get to Idaho from Maine and avoid suspicion from the feds if there was an investigation into Tav’s death.

I smiled politely. “Thanks.”

“Been to Maine before?”

“This trip was my first time. I’m thinking of buying something here.”

“Can’t beat the Nor’east. Wild weather and even wilder people.”

“I’ve noticed.”

He tipped his chin, waving once before turning to the next drink order. I crossed the café and headed to a private corner near the window. I didn’t dare run back to grab today’s copy of the newspaper, but every fiber of me wanted to.

I’d been waiting for this news.

Was Tav found dead or alive? And did investigators really suspect a drug overdose or was that just the cover story?

My entire future hung in the balance.

I’d lain awake all of the last five nights wondering who else may have seen me leave Tav’s room that day. I’d covered every angle in my head, praying the secret service agents didn’t search every minute of the security footage in that hallway to find I’d been the last to see Tav.

Or had I?

I had no details of his death, maybe I hadn’t been the last to see him. I’d left before I’d known the outcome for a reason. He’d still been breathing, he’d still been alive, and the tabloids were already having a field day with Tav’s sordid history. Dipping his toes into small-time scandals was the norm for Tav, or so I’d come to find out.

I didn’t know what he did while he was away all week, he kept me in the dark. Always. He’d kept my biggest secret, and I’d been none the wiser.

Would the day come that I’d get a knock on my door, a friendly looking investigator just wanting to ask a few questions about the last time I’d seen Tav? Maybe, but I wouldn’t be there to get it.

I hadn’t left Maine since the moment I walked off that mountain.

Something warned me off going back to Lancaster. Our life there — what we almost had — was too real.

Plus, they would come looking for me there.

Whoever they were.

I knew they existed. The ones that had stolen my mom’s life by orchestrating a convenient accident. The ones that had insisted to Tav’s father that my family was a problem that required handling. The ones taking orders from the senator.

To them, we are objects.

I inhaled a silent breath of coffee steam, a smile lighting my face when I suddenly caught sight of the broad expanse of shoulders I’d missed so much.

“I’ve missed you.”

I rose to meet him, and the way his arms encircled my waist sent a warm thrill through my veins.

“I’ve missed you too.”

Bradley’s lips dusted the shell of my ear. “What took you so long?”

“Something tells me I should have stayed on the mountain,” I hummed.

Bradley settled himself in the seat across from me, but refused to release my hands, holding both in his palms across the table. “I thought you were dead. Jesus, I thought he must have murdered you. He wouldn’t answer any of my phone calls, and right before his dad announced he was running for senate he blocked me. His phone wouldn’t even ring anymore, but I caught him, I called him from a friend’s phone one time and he picked up. I heard a woman’s voice in the background — she thought it was you. I told him to let me talk to you but he didn’t say a thing and just hung up on me. I hated him from the beginning, Frey, and I hate him more now.”

“Well, the paper says he’s dead, so we shouldn’t talk about him like—”

“I don’t care if he’s dead or not. I hope he rots in Hell, Freya, he deserves it for what he put you through. You were basically his prisoner up there. I never liked him, from the moment I saw him at Steph’s gallery opening I knew he had ulterior motives.”

“You don’t even know the half of it. And the gallery opening? Which one? I don’t remember seeing you at Steph’s gallery before.”

“I stopped in once, I wanted to buy you something special for your birthday last year but Steph had sold out. An art gallery without art, can you imagine that?”

“I miss galleries, and Steph, and the real world,” I confessed. “I thought I’d never see you again, but I think that was the point. Tav put the house in my name. He was brilliant, don’t you see? It’s his final fuck you. He told me he did it all for me, to save my life. But Tav would never do anything that didn’t look out for Tav first.”

“Geez, this is a crazy story. I had no idea, Frey.”

“Maybe he’s right, though. Maybe I was safer for a while, but he didn’t tell me the dangers he was saving me from. In fact, think about it — putting the chalet in my name ensures he’s the hero no matter what happens. If I ever tried to smear his name like he claimed my mother did to his father, he would be covered because he’d gifted me this beautiful luxury house. And worse . . . if things between us blew up in his face, then as soon as investigators found out he’d transferred the house to my name, they’d want to talk to me. He’s set me up to fail. Even with his death, my life isn’t my own.”

“Frey, you can’t keep letting that fear hang over you. Let me take you home to Lancaster, I’ll stay over so you don’t have to worry about anything.”

“I’m not going back to Lancaster. I’m not going anywhere I’ve ever been before.”

“You’re not?”

“I can’t. I’ve been thinking about where to go next, and . . .” I worked the next words over in my head. Could I trust Bradley? He was my oldest friend. “I think I’m going to Idaho. And I’ve contacted the advocacy agency my mom worked with.”

“Why?”

“I’ve agreed to publish anonymous articles detailing what I know about Tav and his father.”

“Freya, don’t. They’ll know it’s you. Then you’ll really be targeted.”

“The advocacy group said it’s the only way to ensure my safety, to be open and honest. They want me to use my real name, but I’m scared to really paint the target on my back.”

Bradley narrowed his eyes. “I don’t think that’s a great idea.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know what else to do. I’m already a target; Tav made me one.”

My oldest friend sighed, locking his worried eyes on mine. “Geez, here I thought I was coming up here to save you from Tav, but it looks like I need to save you from yourself.”

“Think about it, if I just go back to that house in Lancaster and hide out and wait for that knock on my door . . . I’m living in fear. I’m letting them control me . . .”

“But who are they exactly?”

I shook my head, leveling with him. “I have no idea, but I have to act like they’re everywhere.”

“Ugh, this is intense.”

“Every moment of my life has been under a microscope since I met Tav, and I had no idea. Not until now. And now . . . he’s gone. I don’t know who to trust beyond myself.”

“You can trust me, always.” Bradley squeezed my hands.

“Tav taught me to trust no one.”

Bradley frowned. “That’s dark.”

“Welcome to life, the weather is weird and the people are weirder.” I pulled a file of printouts from my bag. “I’ve been digging.”

“Great.”

“Turns out Tav was sent to boarding school after some behavioral issues. I couldn’t find much—”

“That’s probably for the best,” Bradley commented.

“So I called the boarding schools around Lancaster.”

“You did?”

I nodded. “He was threatening other students — other female students — and he was diagnosed with a suspected personality disorder at that point. Lack of impulse control, the intake report specifically said.”

“How did you get his intake report?”

“You’d be surprised how cheap it is to get information on a senator’s son. It’s like people are desperate to share what they know and knock the golden son off his pedestal.”

Bradley cocked his chin my way, then broke into an awkward chuckle. “So just to be clear, you’re not coming home to Lancaster with me, and you’re being hunted by God knows who?”

“Pretty much . . .” I frowned. “It’s complicated.”

Bradley rolled his eyes. “I’ll say. I want to help you, Freya. I’m here for you however you need me.”

I shook my head, unwilling to ask him to stay and live this life with me, even if I wanted him to. “I shouldn’t have called, it’s involving you too much.”

“You should have called. I was waiting for your call.” He pulled my hands closer to his, stroking my knuckles in soft kisses. “I’m so glad you called, there’s nowhere I’d rather be. I still love you, Freya. I never stopped. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it over and over.”

“Come with me then,” were the only words I could stand to utter.

“With you? W-where?”

“Everywhere.”

“Freya—”

“I’m selling the chalet. We can live off the money for years, let them find us. Portugal, Puerto Rico, Panama — name it.”

“Frey—”

“I don’t trust anyone else,” I squeaked as I sank my fingers into my pocket and pulled out a folded letter. “This arrived at my hotel late last night. Someone slipped it under the door. They know where I am.”

Chapter 41

“Who is C?” Bradley queried when he’d finished reading the note I’d received. It simply read: Don't dig too deep, or you'll dig yourself into a grave. Your Friend, C

“I think it’s the man that murdered my mother. I think he was also sending me letters while I was at the chalet. They were addressed to The Sunday Wife and so creepy.”

“Maybe they weren’t meant for you.”

“You think the mailman made a mistake?” Sarcasm laced my words.

“Maybe.” He shrugged. “Even if it was the guy that killed your mom, what does he want from you?”

“He wants to keep me quiet, or to get revenge.” I folded the letter and tucked it back into my pocket. Hidden, but not forgotten.

“Revenge for what?”

“What I know,” I answered quickly. “And what I took.”

“Freya, what are you involved in?”

“I’m not sure yet,” I shook my head, trying to work out the pieces. “But I’m going to keep publishing what I know anonymously to any news outlet that will listen.”

“Even if it means risking your life?”

“Especially if it means that. Don’t you see? The more I dig, the more I find. And the more they’re rattled by me, the more I know to keep digging.”

“Frey—” Bradley clasped our hands together — “you know I’ve always loved you. I’d go to the ends of the earth and back, I’d protect you and our family if it kills me—”

“Again?” I uttered, knowing my words would light a firestorm of possibility in him.

“Always, Frey.”

“I’m scared,” I finally admitted. “But I need answers. Tav had secrets, and I need to get to the bottom of them.”

“You don’t have to be scared as long as I’m here.” Bradley stood, rounding the table to gather me in his arms. “I missed you so damn much, I won’t let go this time. I’ll do whatever it takes.” Quiet tears burned my eyes. “Anything?”

“Always,” he affirmed again.

“Good. Because I think the only answer is to fake our own deaths. On the mountain.”

He held me at arm’s length, eyes crashing around my face then darting around the coffee shop to make sure no one had overheard. “Are you kidding me?”

“I wish I was.”

He guided me out of the café quickly, shuttling me down the street a block before catching both of my shoulders in his hands. “Tell me again, I’m praying I misheard you.”

“You didn’t.” I could feel the adrenaline coursing through my veins. “Look what they did to my mother, this is life or death. It always has been. I think C is Chuck, Tav’s father. The man that strung my mother along for years, the one that had her accident arranged to shut her up . . .”

“What? Frey, are we really talking about the same man?”

I nodded, scared of my own assumptions. “There’s so much more.”

I passed him the folded newspaper detailing my abduction as a child.

Bradley waited long moments as he seemed to gather his thoughts. “Christ, Freya. That’s you. There’s no doubt in my mind, but . . . now what?”

“Now . . . I guess Brad and Freya die,” I uttered. “But I need to go to Idaho, I need to see my biological parents’ house . . . I need more answers.” Hot tears spilled down my cheeks. “My entire life was a lie before now.”

Bradley was quiet before admitting, “I love you, Frey, I just regret that when I finally persuade you to say I do, it won’t be with the beautiful name you had when I first met you that day at Sunday school — but it won’t make the day any less sweet.”

“You’ve always been too good to me.”

“It’s always been you and me. No matter what the world throws at us, I wouldn’t trade a single Sunday out of the next three thousand with you.”

Bradley wrapped me in his arms then, the years of history between us knitting us together tighter than ever.

“Frey . . . if anyone harms a hair on your head, I swear to God I’ll kill them.” I tensed at my oldest friend’s words.

“W-why does it feel like . . .” I trailed off.

Why did it feel like Bradley knew more than he let on?

His voice lowered. “I didn’t want to tell you this, but someone sent me a message . . . they’re on our team, Frey.”

“They?”

He stared at me, eyes warm with pity.

I hated him at that moment. Hated that he seemed to know more than I did. “Who are they?”

“I . . . I don’t even know for sure. They know everything, and they just kept repeating that they’re on our team. If anything happens, they recommend we stay in populated areas but keep a low profile. It’s easier for them to keep an asset on us, digital or otherwise. They said now that Tav is out of the picture, it’s important.”

“Oh my God,” I pressed a hand over my mouth before whispering, “is Tav really dead?”

“I-I don’t know, Freya, but they said he left you everything. His life insurance and a variety of safety deposits and lockboxes around the East Coast. I don’t think it really matters if he is or isn’t, what matters is that on paper he is.”

“Oh.” A cold, numb sensation spread through my veins. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“I shouldn’t leave you. That settles it, I’ll hire someone to clear out our houses, we’ll move as far away as you want. Whatever it takes for you to feel safe. I’ll bring you to Idaho, I’ll bring you around the goddamn world if you want.”

I slumped against the brick wall of the coffee shop. “If . . . if they’re on our team . . . who are they protecting us from?”

Bradley’s shoulder lined up with mine against the brick wall. His voice low and steady, he whispered, “Foreign actors. Enemies of the senator. They repeated that they couldn’t reveal much, but that Tav struck a deal with a very important oppositional leader for access to his father, under the assumption Tav’s father would win the election.”

“Tav struck a deal?”

“Tav struck a deal and accepted a down payment in cryptocurrency for brokering what would be a historic conversation.”

“And now that Tav is dead, they want their money?”

“And you’re the lucky winner that has it.”

“Me?” I shook with disbelief and anger at Tav’s plan to set me up to fail. “I don’t even know anything.”

“They have assets on you, Freya. They’re waiting for you to go to the bank and collect the USB drives with the encrypted seed codes to his cryptocurrency wallet.”

“I-I don’t have any of that. I didn’t even know he left me a house until . . .”

“Until they told you.”

I clamped down on my lip, softening my muscles. “I still don’t know if Tav was the good guy or the bad guy. If I could trust him or not. Wait — the stranger at the base of the mountain . . . is he one of them too?”

“Maybe.” Bradley wrapped me in his embrace again. “And I think Tav was both. People aren’t either good or evil, the heart of darkness is in all of us.”

“W-why did they tell you and not me, though?” I finally thought to ask.

“They said they tried to warn you at the chalet, something about photos in a locked room?”

I groaned. “Unbelievable. Everything was so carefully orchestrated to reveal itself slowly to me in the most indirect way possible.”

“Because if nobody tells you directly, no one implicates themselves.”

“But then why you, why now? How can I even trust you? Or that the message you received was real? Did you have a conversation? I don’t know what or who to believe anymore.” I blinked back tears. “Even my own memories.”

“That’s the point, Freya, to scramble your world and keep you scared.”

“And controlled.”

“Maybe.” He shrugged like it didn’t matter.

“I just need to get some sleep, I can’t take this in and try to make a decision about where to go or what to do tomorrow. I can’t even call the police and report this, how could they believe me?”

“I’m not leaving you.” Bradley faced me, features stern. “That’s why they called me, Frey, because they knew I’d come right up here and defend you with my life if that’s what it takes. You and I are forever, remember?”

“But how . . . how could they know?”

“They’ve been watching us for a long time . . . they know everything. They’ve seen everything. Even the things we didn’t say out loud.” He lowered his tone again. “They know about the baby.”

Anxiety rocketed through me. Nobody knew about the baby. “I never told a soul about that night, Bradley.” The memory of our one night together was selectively lost to the recesses of my memory.

His eyes darkened.

“They’re probably listening to this conversation now — they have audio and visual capabilities on every power pole and streetlight throughout every city in America. That’s why it’s safer if we stay in the cities.”

I rubbed my head, more determined than ever to gather my thoughts alone.

“I need to think and then sleep. I’ll catch up with you in a few days, Bradley. Just go home. I’ll be fine.”

“No way.”

“Yes.” I pushed him away gently. “Seriously, I’ll call you.”

His brow furrowed, but he began backing away. “Text me on that encrypted app we talked about if you need anything.”

I nodded, taking the phone out of my bag and going to the app store right then to download it.

“Are you sure you want me to leave? I can rent a hotel room next door if you need me—”

“I won’t.” I hit download on the app store and watched as the status bar indicated its download to my device. “Here you are.” I searched his phone number easily, pulled up a new message in the app, typed out a quick hi into the blank space. When a dialog box asked for my name, I typed something other than Freya, and then hit send. “See?”

A tiny alert popped up on Bradley’s phone. “From Ramona,” he read. “I like the name.”

“Thanks. It feels more like me than Freya ever did.” I blew him an air kiss then turned without giving him another look.

I didn’t know if I would see Bradley again, I didn’t know if it put him more in danger one way or another, but at least I’d let him think we were good for now.

Tomorrow, if I decided to leave for good, I would ditch this phone number and then disappear, only a flicker of a memory in Bradley’s past.

An engine idled at my side as I walked. I turned to find Bradley’s puppy dog eyes on me. “It’s not too late to come home with me, even for a night or two.”

I waved him off. “Bye, Bradley.”

He shrugged, then spun out as he took off down the street.

I walked nearly half a mile to the small roadside motel I’d rented for myself outside town. I turned the key in the lock, anxious for my head to hit the pillow and rest my eyes, when my phone beeped to life with an alert.

The app.

I pulled my phone out and swiped the screen. A new message from an unknown number popped up instantly.

“Who in the world . . . ?” I murmured as I took in the few words.

Can we talk? There’s more you should know . . .

Chapter 42

Fear sizzled in my veins. Anxiety tunneled my vision.

I typed a quick reply and hit send before I could second-guess my decision.

Yes.

My phone rang an instant later. I gulped, “Hello?”

“Step inside your motel room, you don’t want to call attention to yourself.” I shivered as the disguised voice murmured over the speaker.

I nodded, suddenly aware that whoever this was could see me, while I couldn’t see them.

Was there a chance this was Bradley, watching me just out of view? I thought of the other possibility — Tav, my undead fiancé who’d probably assumed a new name by now. Would he have a reason to contact me like this? Maybe about the safety deposit boxes I wasn’t supposed to be aware of? I stepped inside the motel room and closed the door behind me, heart hammering as I turned the deadbolt and then peaked through the small peephole.

“You’ll need to do a better job at staying under the radar.”

I bit my bottom lip, tears stinging my eyes. “Is . . . is everything true?”

“Yes, with more that can’t be disclosed at this time. The only thing you should know is that your life is in danger. We’ve done what we can to halt any attempts on your life, but you’ll need to stay alert and aware.”

“Or else I’ll end up like my mother?”

The speaker hung silent for several long beats as I thought of the mess she’d found herself in all of those years ago.

“Yes, but that wasn’t us. Tav tried to scare you off the investigation — the more you know, the more in danger you are.” The voice lowered an octave, deep tones jumbled by the voice distorter. “She knew too much, Ramona. You cannot publish the articles, anonymous or otherwise.”

“W-what? Why?”

“It degrades the integrity of the investigation. The public isn’t ready for the implications of this type of surveillance warfare.”

“You don’t have the right to—”

“It’s not about rights, it’s a matter of security.”

My throat burned as my fingers itched to hang up on this man — to rewind my life to a time when nothing of this existed, when my days were simple if not a little unsatisfying. “W-why now?”

Did they know I was the last person to see Tav alive? Did they think I’d killed him? Had I blacked out and killed him and they’d witnessed everything on a hidden recorder somewhere?

Silence, before a clipped answer came. “When you’re notified of the lockboxes, we’ll need access to them. Immediately.”

“What lockboxes?” I played ignorant.

“The ones Bradley told you about.”

“How can you hear my conversations?” I interjected.

“One of the social media apps on your phone is connected to our tech contractor, we have a back door.”

“Isn’t that illegal?”

Silence before the stranger continued. “We’ll need access to those boxes immediately, as a matter of national security.”

“Does that mean Tav wasn’t one of you?”

“One of us?” A garbled chuckle and then the measured tone returned. “We’ve had tabs on Tav since he was in high school. His father has been a very important man for a long time.”

“Chuck — this all comes back to Chuck?”

“He’s not just Chuck anymore, he’s an elected official, and as it stands there are too many important people that will lose big if he doesn’t win big.”

“So that’s why my mother was handled?”

Another long silence drove like a dagger through my heart. “A message was sent by foreign opposition before we could interject.”

“A message? You know who murdered my mother?”

“It’s my understanding there was an accident. And the woman you call your mother had her own secrets — starting with how she came to be your mother.”

“But the medical examiner mentioned foul play in her death. And if you knew that woman abducted me, why wasn’t she just arrested?”

“I am sorry for your loss.”

“Tell me more! I know there’s more you’re not telling me!”

“Your mother took an offer from a foreign actor that she couldn’t refuse, perhaps it cost her more than she bargained for. That’s all I can reveal at this time.”

“You son of a bitch, why did you call me? To threaten me not to publish my mother’s findings and blackmail me into not telling the world about the corrupt underbelly of reality?”

“We advocated on your behalf, Freya, but if you become a disruptor like your mother it won’t end well. That will take you out of our control. There were assets placed on your mother for years before her untimely accident, but she caught onto them quickly and either threatened them in public or ditched them whenever she could. Protecting your mother became a liability of her own making — we would advise you not follow the same path.”

“So . . . that’s it then, don’t become the Sunday Wife?”

“The chalet was meant to keep you safe, through election season and beyond, if necessary. Tav was adamant about that.”

“Tav . . . how do I know you’re not Tav? Maybe this is all a ruse, a mind game to keep me on my toes and tortured forever.”

“I’m not Tav.”

“Of course not, Tav would have changed his name by now.” I knew I sounded crazy, like the lunatic Tav often made me out to be, but I didn’t care. “If you’re not Tav, tell me your name.”

“I will not. Hopefully this is the last time we speak.”

I laughed bitterly into the phone.

“After some deliberation we’ve concluded if you’re anything like your mother, your own best protection is yourself. We knew though, that if you weren’t at least somewhat informed you may inadvertently put yourself in harm’s way.”

“Like my mother,” I hummed with defeat. “Just one thing: is Tav in witness protection?”

“Please keep your head low, that’s all we ask. And notify us of those lockboxes. We’ll be watching you in Idaho, good luck on your search.”

“Why is this happening to me?”

“Dig deeper, find the story. Keep this app installed and we’ll reach out if we come across anything that impacts your security. We wish you the best.” The speaker went silent then.

I dropped to the floor, fresh tears stinging my eyes.

With or without Tav, my world would never be the same.

I sat silent for a long time, my mind reeling from the information bombs that had just been dropped on me. My hands shook as I remembered the strange note I’d received earlier. I typed out a sentence on the app and sent it to the anonymous number.

The reply took only a minute.

Chuck must have sent the threatening note. He’s convinced you killed his son in that hotel room. Don’t worry, he’s covered in security detail at all times, he can’t do anything. His political enemies make him a liability, he won’t be active long.

I replied: So my family is collateral damage in Chuck’s political career?

More like strategic political targets by foreign enemies. Tav was a target too.

I thought over my next question, then asked without considering the implications: Tav’s overdose was an accident, right? There wasn’t foul play?

There is always foul play. As long as the information you have remains concealed, so will ours.

They knew. They’d found the security footage of my leaving Tav’s hotel room, or worse, had other evidence that implicated me. I thought of the syringe then, maybe they’d dusted it and found my muddled prints. I still didn’t believe Tav was dead, which meant whatever evidence they had on me could be used to publicly implicate me in Tav’s apparent overdose.

The air vacated my lungs.

I was still a captive, only my captor had changed.

I’d been a captive all of my life without knowing it.

My fingers darted over my next question, but then I deleted it. I didn’t need an answer. If Tav and I were targets, Bradley was too.

I didn’t reply, only shutting down my phone and vowing to toss this one over the bridge tomorrow, right after I bought a disposable one on my way to Idaho. I didn’t want anyone to find me where I was going, not if it put them at risk.

I took a deep breath and stood up. If I had any hope of getting through this next phase of life, I’d need to believe that Tav was alive and we’d both escaped the chalet in our own way, this time anyway.

It was the only hope I had at carrying on. My life depended on it.

Chapter 43

One Year Later

There are some fates worse than death, began my first article. It’s dark inside the belly of the beast. I know, I’ve been there.

The first time I met Senator Charles Garrison I was eighteen months old.

I paused my typing, thoughts lingering over my next sentence like déjà vu.

If I had it to do over again, would I?

I swallowed, thinking back on the last time Bradley had visited, his warmth welcome on the Arctic nights that were my reality most of the last year in the mountains of Idaho. I wasn’t just surviving, I was thriving. I’d started my own blog detailing pieces of the puzzle as I found them under an anonymous moniker. I had a steady following of readers that subscribed to my bi-weekly posts, and a growing number that sent donations to an anonymous payment account that I’d created.

Bradley had visited once a month for most of the past year. He never asked for details, but I divulged how I’d made peace with the mother that raised me and the parents that had lost me on that Thanksgiving eve so many years ago. The only secrets I had in this world were the ones I carried in my heart.

Bradley thought he knew my everythings, but there are some things best left unspoken, especially among lovers.

Bradley still asked me to marry him almost every time he visited my rural cabin, and rain, snow, or sunshine he brought the engagement ring he’d purchased long ago in the event I finally said yes.

He’d asked me again just this morning before leaving for his flight back to the East Coast.

I never said no.

The truth was that I wanted with all of me to marry him, but I couldn’t put his life in danger more than it was. I let him think what he chose to about my life, but I refused to reveal any of the details I’d come to discover in all of my months of digging into my past. The secrets that lived and breathed within families struck me in a new way. The secrets among the powerful existed at an entirely new level.

I was determined to have my revenge on my captor. Word by word I would reveal with excruciating detail what I knew about my mother’s existence before and leading up to the night of her death — one handwritten note and scribbled calendar date at a time. I chose not to go to the police about my abduction. There was no family left to ease the hearts of, it would only be me suffering as I relived the moments through DNA evidence. And the senator would never be implicated — no evidence existed officially that he even knew my mother. All that I had were memories and my anonymous blog to spread the truth as I knew it to be. The truth Tav had been too much of a coward to tell.

Revenge is a dish best served cold, and I had the patience to dole my scandals out slowly.

I’d been off all of my traditional prescription medication for a year, my solace turned inward as I furiously wrote out my memories and nightmares on the page. Every day felt like a trauma-inducing rollercoaster of déjà vu until I inevitably found myself knee deep in my mother’s personal items in search of answers. Instead, though, I found more questions. Medical records and journals filled with fastidiously written accounts of abuses she’d encountered over her life, some the drafts that would later become some of her most-read articles online. She was a sensation in women’s rights circles, and I’d been none the wiser. She held so many secrets in her heart, and I came to believe she did love me, in her own way.

Maybe my own life would end this way, a dizzying array of questions and false leads so confusing that even those who loved me would wonder who I’d been. Sometimes it takes dying for people to start listening.

I thought of the baby that had taken its first and last heartbeats inside my body. I cried at the thought of what could have been, if only. Tav went to every prenatal appointment, held my hand through each and every teardrop I’d shed when I lost my child, but Bradley also believed my baby was his.

The truth was, my mind had blacked out the memories. I’d struggled through regressive therapy to beckon them back, but I’d locked away every intimate interaction after coping with so much loss. I’d started new medical therapies and counted every breath as I feared I might die of grief if I didn’t.

I hated life.

Steph had brought me out of the darkness when she’d invited me out to dinner and drinks, and Bradley stopping over to handle the lawn maintenance each week gave me a moment of lightheartedness to look forward to. It took all of them to bring me back to life, and now I suffered alone without them most of the days.

I’d thought of calling Steph a hundred times, but I couldn’t bring myself to involve her in my upside-down world.

Instead, I stayed busy with investigating my mother’s accident, choosing to pour over the details in the medical examiner and crime scene investigator’s reports one sentence at a time. Apparently, her blood alcohol level was high. The fire that ignited in her living room was preventable and tragic.

But the reports also told another story.

My mother’s body was saved from the flames by a mattress. It seemed plausible that the ceiling had collapsed in her small bungalow after the flames ate away at the structural beams, but the medical examiner also found a bullet wound. A small nick in her neck from a .22-caliber firearm indicated an assassination-style fatal shot.

The mattress protected her from the fire, the bullet had already stolen her life.

She hadn’t lit the fire that consumed her home, it was only meant to destroy evidence. Destroy the past. A history. A life.

My mother’s life ended under a mattress, a fate we shared — mine at the beginning of my life, and hers at the end.

I moved back to my keyboard and considered my next words, knowing I would reveal the discrepancies in the police report. It was only a matter of time.

I’d kept the New York Times front-page feature that showed Tav’s father, now the president of the most powerful country in the world, visiting the grave of his son.

I hardly recognized the man that had visited my mother’s home so many years ago, his white hair and the lines etched into his forehead more prominent than when I’d known him.

Grief swallowed his normally bright smile. The charm that typically jumped off the page was replaced with sorrow for the son he’d lost to an overdose. Tav had relapsed, the article explained. It was all very believable, but sickening because I knew how contrived the narrative was. I wondered if Tav’s father suspected anything — I wondered how long I would get away with murdering the president’s son.

I closed my laptop, bitterness charging through my veins the more I thought about how our love had unfolded against a backdrop of lies.

Shoving my sneakers on my feet, I did the only thing I’d found that made me feel better. I snagged the keys to my rusted Toyota Camry and headed for the only drive that I knew would calm my nerves.

I visited them nearly every day.

I felt like I was getting to know them for the first time.

My real parents.

A smile played at the corners of my lips as I drove in the direction of Mountain Ridge Cemetery. I visited them often, brought flowers and spoke to them as if they could hear me. I needed them to know I was okay, that I hadn’t been abused or neglected, that I’d been loved and cared for by a sick woman. A woman that had never received real love as far as I could tell, so she’d shown it in the only way she knew how. By stealing it and holding it captive for as long as she could.

I’d spent months researching the woman that stole me from my family — I found out very little about her upbringing. I considered taking a DNA test to find any surviving biological relatives, but I thought that might clue the feds into my location, if they didn’t already know.

But that didn’t stop me from yearning to know about my past. Did I have cousins and aunts and uncles that could fill in the gaps of my memory? I’d always wondered why my mother wasn’t close to her family, why we never spent holidays surrounded in laughter and loving relatives, but now I knew it’s because she held her more precious secret tightly to her chest.

Me.

When I reached Mountain Ridge, I parked in my usual spot and then walked the short distance to the remote corner of the rural cemetery. My feet padded against the spongy ground as I walked, the deafening silence of the woods around me comforting as I made peace with my past.

I reached the shared grave of the Gersteins and bowed my head, murmuring a soft prayer just like I always did.

And then I stood in silence, letting their memory wash over me. Soothe me. Carry away the pain that had been carved into my heart.

Minutes silently passed as I soaked up their love. I imagined what my life may have looked like if I’d never been taken. A normal childhood, the only thing I’d craved as a kid, was stolen from me that November day.

Then, the crack of a snapped branch underfoot fell on my alert ears. So soft most wouldn’t have been alarmed, but I lived in the woods, prepared for what might be lurking around any blind corner.

But still, nothing could prepare me for him.

“Freya.”

Chapter 44

His warm voice weakened my knees, even after all this time. “It’s good to see you again.”

It was him. I would never forget my dead fiancé’s voice, not in a million years. This man haunted my dreams. And now my reality.

I almost sobbed as hot tears stung my eyes.

“I’ve missed you.”

His voice was just as I remembered, its effect on me as profound as ever. But I couldn’t look at him. I hated him too much. But something in me . . . still loved him too. His presence was confusing and exciting. Thrilling and maddening all in the same breath.

Gone was the obligation to Bradley, just because he was the only other witness to my secret. Forgotten was the past that used to bind us in favor of the danger that was woven into my life now. I was living my life anonymously every day, only existing through the small lens of the outside world when I hiked down the mountain for a day and uploaded my next article at a cheap internet café in Eagle Falls. Or came here. My routine was simple. Of course he’d found me. He’d known right where to look.

“I never thought I’d hear your voice again,” I admitted.

“God, I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed talking to you.” I heard the crack of emotion in his voice. “I had to go into hiding, there was a threat on my life — on both of our lives. What I did, I don’t know if it was ethical, but I’d do it again if it kept you alive. Did you get the lockboxes?”

“No, I changed my number and never looked back,” I confessed, still averting my eyes from him.

If I never turned around, was he really with me? If I never saw his face I could chalk this moment up to my overactive imagination.

“Typical of you. My estate lawyer is probably shitting himself trying to find you; he doesn’t get paid until you sign the paperwork transferring ownership of the lockboxes.” His tone turned serious. “Ah well, it probably kept you alive.”

“I would have turned it all over to your friends at the fed if I’d received it anyway.”

“I don’t have friends, Frey. Never mistake anyone for a friend. People are always connected in surprising ways. I don’t know any feds, I only know that a stranger contacted me and knew more than I expected about things no one should know. I just barely escaped with my life at that hotel in Maine. After I pulled the needle out of my arm I went down the fire escape — I figured they must have sent you up to take me out. I thought maybe it was my father’s political enemies at the time, but now I realize you were framed, Frey. Not by the opposition, but by the home team.”

The implication in his words surged through me like a shockwave. “It sounds like you mean a coup or . . . treason.”

“I took a few phone calls from a very powerful man. I promised him nothing, and they deposited millions of digital currency into an electronic wallet. I never struck a deal, they were attempting to offer me a bribe. There are millions of dollars on the computer chips locked in those boxes and I don’t care, I’m safer this way. I’ve never felt more alive. The Rocky Mountain air is good for me. Come visit, Freya. Stay. It’s been hell without you.”

“But I’ve never felt safer in Eagle Falls . . .”

“Jesus — would you at least look at me?”

He caught me by the shoulders and forced me to turn and face him.

“Bradley said it was the safest—”

“Bradley is a mole. Jesus, you’re so goddamn pretty.”

I finally met his gaze, warm and full of remorse. Always concerned for me. His hair was cropped short and he’d lost weight, the sharp angle of his jaw and chiseled cheekbones more pronounced. He looked different, but still so handsome.

“Don’t trust anyone, Freya. Since the moment I caught Bradley trying to put a GPS trace on your car last year I’ve been working to figure out his angle. I knew whoever was involved with your mother’s accident had to be close — must have known and had access. I saw the crime scene, Freya. From the trajectory of the wound, I would say she knew the person that took her life.”

“W-what?! Why, how? How could you think . . . why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why didn’t I tell you? Because then I’d have to explain why I already had a trace on your car. I never trusted him, not from the moment you hired him for lawn care. It was all a ruse to get close to you. I stayed away in the city, tried to give you freedom until it became clear that your freedom came at the cost of your safety. I had to get you out of there, had to get you somewhere he couldn’t find you.”

“You stole me away for my safety?” I huffed. “Do you really think my oldest friend would have harmed me? And why did you have a tracker on my car?”

“The therapist suggested I do it after she suspected you were having dissociative fugue states.”

“The therapist thought I was dissociating? I don’t recall any of what you’re saying.” My head pounded with his words.

Was he right? Was I crazy after all?

“She wasn’t sure. You seemed so confused and you’d been through so much. When I mentioned I’d found receipts of places you’d claimed to never be . . . well, we thought it was the safest option for the days I worked in the city and couldn’t be with you physically.”

“So how does Bradley tie into all of this?” Disbelief saturated my words.

“He’s connected more than he lets on. I don’t think he’s the man you knew before. He escalated to special forces pretty quickly after he enlisted, but that’s all I can find of his time in the service. I couldn’t find any details of training missions or deployments. His record was wiped clean. I have a hunch someone important used him to gain access to you and your mother. Someone knew you were a liability. I’m so sorry.”

“The more questions I ask, the more questions I have. About her life and mine. And theirs.” I gestured to the headstone of my biological parents. “About everything I thought I knew.”

“I’m with you, Freya. Even when I couldn’t be with you, I was. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about your birth parents sooner. I’ve been working the possibilities over in my head a thousand different ways. I can’t keep living this way, on the run and without you too. The only thing missing in my life is your smart mouth. I saw the look of shock and hurt on your face when you saw me with Kimberley on the campaign trail. I knew you assumed I’d left you for her. It killed me that you thought that, but it was safer if you did. It wasn’t true — I’ve loved you from the beginning, I could never be with anyone else — but as long as it kept you safe I needed you to believe it. Come back with me, Frey.”

“That’s not my name anymore. I use Ramona. The name they gave me.”

He nodded, both of his hands clasping mine now. He was working his charm on me, the same spell his father cast over my mother. Tav had been my everything for so long, I’d always felt him on a profound level.

I imagined Campaign Barbie at his side with her clipboard and smile. The soft angles of her face and the way the light caught her cheeks as she watched my Tav. Was she the same woman that had listened to me through my darkest moments last year, therapist’s notebook in her lap and an array of prescriptions at the ready?

I tried to compare their features in my mind’s eye, but the more I did, the more they bled into one. Was this the usual trick my memory played on me? Dissolving reality in the mirage of my mind to fit my own deceptive narrative? Had I only been looking to create an enemy out of Tav, while all of this time my safety had been his sole priority?

“What about the chalet? The department? Do you still work for them?”

“Fuck the department. There is no department, there are only bad guys. Greedy, ruthless men that will chase power at any cost. Some are from faraway places and some are from right in my own backyard. Yours too — the lawn guy, for chrissakes. You never thought that maybe . . .” He huffed. “Well, I wish I’d never left you alone with him. I wish I’d never taken that contract with the department, that I’d walked away from my father a long time ago. It’s you and me, Ramona; you’re the only thing that’s ever mattered to me.”

“What about the gun? You left me alone in the wild without a gun.”

“You didn’t even know it was there until you stumbled across it in the closet. I knew you weren’t comfortable with it, and I knew if I told you the real reason why I had it — because there was a chance we’d been followed up there by some very bad guys — well, I wanted you safe, that’s all I could think about. I knew you were safe locked up in that chalet after I left. I knew Bud would take care of you — if he’d refused to help, I would have returned. I trusted him more than Bradley, and I also paid him a helluva lot to make sure you were taken care of up there.”

“Tav . . . I-I wish you would have told me everything. I felt so vulnerable every moment.”

“And now you’ve found your strength. We’ve been through so much. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you more when you lost our baby, but I can be now. I left that life. My father was a pawn to powerful people for as long as I can remember, I won’t be that too. I left to stop the cycle before it consumed us both. I think Bradley works for the department, like I did. I think they brought us in together as op-sec . . . for you. To keep you quiet, to keep you controlled.”

Tears sprung to my eyes at his frank admissions. My mind lingered on our past. Our baby.

I knew in my soul that baby was a part of me and Tav, and whatever I’d let Bradley think was only to avoid upsetting him. Tav and I were real, we’d always been real.

But if he brought up our baby now, did that mean I’d made up all of the memories I had of his hushed whisper in my ear?

I know the baby isn’t mine.

I cringed, unable to shake the darkness those words cast over me.

Like a cloud, the implications hung.

“They’ve been waiting for me to contact you, that’s why I didn’t want to raise alarm bells and do it before now. I’ve been on the move for months, never staying more than a few days in one place. I’ve been living life on the run, but it sounds like you have too. Let’s do it together.”

I remembered the dark shadow in the background of my photo. My smiling face, Tav forever keeping watch over my shoulder.

“What should I call you now?” I finally asked.

“Whatever you want,” Tav replied.

“There’s no going back for us, is there?” I asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“And there’s no other way?”

“Not that I can see.”

“We were just born into this random excuse for a life?”

He sighed. “If there was another way, I would do it for you.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

“Okay? Really? If you come back with me to Boulder, there’s no looking back. No contacting anyone from your previous life.”

My previous life had already tried to kill me. It had taken being locked on the mountain for me to stumble into my true freedom, the veil lifted from my eyes just in time before I suffered a fate like my mom.

“Nothing could kill me as much as being without you did. You won’t leave again? I won’t survive your next disappearance.” I confessed.

“I won’t, I promise.” I pressed my lips together, trying to control the overwhelming emotions bubbling through me. My best friend, the other man who’d always been there for me, was hired to spy on me. Did I owe Bradley an explanation for anything? I didn’t think so, but I suspected he had the means to find me if he really wanted to.

“I know it’s hard for you to say goodbye to him but his love would have killed you.”

“And yours doesn’t?” I countered.

His raw chuckle filled my ears then. “Maybe. But I can’t wait to find out.”

Warmth filled my senses as I thought of packing up my things and leaving again. The last year of solitude was like a strange fugue state that would soon be a distant memory. From that point on I would think on my time in Idaho with a passing sense of déjà vu, lost to the murky mist of my mind before the memory could fully materialize.

Had it ever really happened at all? Had the chalet happened? Had I really been held captive or was it all in my mind?

Tears of relief filled my eyes. Tav and I could finally get back to normal. “I thought I’d never see you again. I thought you were dead.” I wiped my eyes with my shirt hem. “It feels like you’re a figment of my imagination.”

“Maybe I am, baby. But maybe everything is.”

Chapter 45

“Boulder, huh?” I muted the audio feed from the smart watch that was strapped to Ramona’s wrist at the Mountain Ridge Cemetery in Eagle Falls and pivoted to my search screen. I pulled up an airline website and searched for the next available flight to Boulder, Colorado.

I’d bought a house on the same side of town just to be near Freya in Lancaster, and I’d been locked down there for the last year as I monitored all of Freya’s conversations, even installing higher definition and much more discreetly hidden cameras in the office where she was conducting much of her research into her mother and biological parents’ pasts in Eagle Falls.

I recognized the quiet excitement in my girl’s voice when she’d first seen Tav. I’d known he was alive all this time, and it had killed me to watch her mourn the man that would be her undoing. Again.

Since being tapped for special security clearance after basic training I’d surveilled hundreds of targets, both foreign and domestic. Nothing really surprised me anymore. But I’ll admit, after all of this time, it surprised me that he reached out.

My eyes hovered on the screen that showed the audio feed of Freya as they walked back from the gravesite of her biological parents to her car. I’m glad she had this time with them because what she was choosing now was life with an enemy of the state. Tav’s life was preserved because of his connection to the president, but if he thought he could live a life free of the department, he was dead wrong.

Whenever I’d visited her in Eagle Falls, she’d looked tired, worn out from this life already. I’d hoped she’d adapt more quickly to her new reality as a fugitive from the law. I could tell she struggled with the isolation and retreated into herself and her past to escape it. Most of her days were spent rifling through her mother’s things in search of answers, the nights long and lonely as she tossed and turned. That’s why I’d made a point to visit her often. If I didn’t, I was worried I’d lose her totally. She was still my best friend. I’d always think of her as my Freya, but my job came first. Always.

She’d always asked me to stay longer when I visited, but my obligations to powerful people were a priority. Luckily for her, they wanted her alive.

For now.

The landscaping company in Lancaster was a good cover for a while, but I’d have to elevate my game if I hoped to follow her to Boulder.

Freya was worried about telling me she was leaving, but no matter what she thought, it wouldn’t be the last time she saw me. Not by a long shot. Not as long as both of our lives depended on it.

My finger hovered over the microphone switch. Every muscle in me wanted to reach out to her, let her know I was still there with her. How could I ever let her go? She’d been the only stabilizing force in my life. How could I tell the woman I loved with all of my heart that I wasn’t who she thought I was? That I’d been living a double life and she was in the thick of it with me? I think she knew. At least a little.

If I flipped on the microphone right now and told her everything that had happened, about my advanced training and experience tracking humans around the globe, she would forgive and forget. Her bleeding heart could never be mad at me for long. But then I’d put both of us at risk, and I’d lose everything I’d worked so hard for in the process. For what — love?

And even though I’d blocked it out, there was the minor fact that I’d facilitated her mother’s demise. I’d placed her under surveillance, and it was my system that was hacked by an anonymous group and released to the wrong people. I was convinced she was killed to send a message to Tav about the dirty money he’d taken to buy access to his powerful father, but who had orchestrated the hit? I still couldn’t be sure. When I’d been tasked with keeping assets on Freya’s mom, I wasn’t privy to why. I only assumed it was because of the possible political implications if Freya’s mother decided to name names when it came to her sketchy past with the senator. My sense now is that it goes much deeper.

I pulled my hand away from the microphone switch, choosing instead to cut the audio feed and leave Freya to her peace again. If Tav wanted her to believe she was having fugue states to justify the true darkness of her reality, maybe it was for the better.

Maybe the senator’s son knew best after all.

A wry grin pulled at my lips. His lies brought her comfort. His lies made her feel safe. If Freya thought lies could bring her peace, then I would respect that.

Freya deserved peace and I couldn’t give it to her.

I pulled up my encrypted email server on-screen and typed out a quick sentence to a colleague in the tech department at the Pentagon.

Taking a quick trip to Boulder, I’ll be off the system for a few days.

I’d saved her from herself once already and I would stop at nothing to do it again. I still had a few more surprises up my sleeve for Freya. She didn’t know it yet, but our forever was far from over, even if her time in Eagle Falls was.

Long ago her bleeding heart caged mine but her fatal flaw was falling in love with lies.

Her fatal flaw was falling in love with her abductor.

And this time, it might be the death of her.

Chapter 46

“Do you really need to bring all of that shit?” Tav’s eyes lingered on the stack of manilla folders that held all of my mother’s evidence against Tav’s family. “We’re gonna need an entire suitcase just for paperwork.”

“That’s all I have left of her. I can’t just throw her legacy away — it’s her life’s work.”

“What? Ruining my father’s life?”

“Getting justice.”

He grunted. “People in glass houses though . . .”

I resisted rolling my eyes at the implication that my mother was as much a criminal for stealing me as was his father for his crimes. Maybe he’s right. In the end it doesn’t matter. “It’s not for me to judge, I just know that very little survived the fire on purpose, so if she hid this stuff to keep it safe, there’s a reason for it.”

The look on Tav’s face told me everything I needed to know. He didn’t care, but he was willing to indulge me on this. “It would be easier if you just shipped it to my place in Boulder.”

I tipped my head to the side as I considered his suggestion. “My luck it would be lost in the mail.” I tucked a few more files into the front pocket of my carry-on luggage. “What time is our flight on Tuesday?”

“Noon,” came his clipped answer. He stood at the window of my cabin, eyes on the towering pine trees that sheltered my tiny A-frame. I’d spent the last year loving every minute of the solitude the place afforded, but change was in the air, I could feel it. Tav had something else on his mind though and that worried me. He shifted away from the window, allowing a sliver of sunlight to cut across the kitchen and land directly on his laptop screen. His email inbox was pulled up and the top message was an automated flight alert from American Airlines. “Did you use the name Ramona to buy my flight?”

My question seemed to take Tav from his thoughts. His gaze crossed the room to meet mine before he moved to the table and closed his laptop screen. “Yes.”

“What did you use for a last name? You never asked to see my new ID — I’m no longer Freya Fremont anymore, remember?”

“Shit — I guess I didn’t think about it. I’ll login and update the passenger name.” He was distracted and anxious, I could tell. Despite the fact that he’d spent the last day saying all the right things, something about his energy still felt off.

“I’ve been thinking, maybe we shouldn’t stay in Boulder. Maybe we should plan to move on to South America or—”

“That sounds like a good idea,” he replied. “I’m exhausted — I think I’m gonna turn in early tonight.” He swiped his laptop off the table, tucking it under his arm as he walked in the direction of the loft stairs. “Only two more nights in Idaho.” He tried to shoot me a hopeful smile but something about it felt hollow.

“I can’t wait to get to Boulder and start over,” I mused.

His eyes flickered around the small cabin before a smile that didn’t reach his eyes met mine. “Me too, baby. Are you coming to bed soon?”

I allowed a smile to turn my lips. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“Good.” He paused at the stairs and shot me a charming grin. “Just got you back — I don’t want to spend another moment without you.”

I nodded, concealing my doubts. “Me too.”

He grinned, then seemed to think better of going up the stairs in favor of moving down the short hallway into the bathroom. With his laptop. He didn’t want me anywhere near it, that much was obvious.

I took the stairs to the loft two at a time, realizing I only had a few minutes to figure out what this man’s secret was. As soon as I reached the top stair, my eyes sought out his small black duffle bag in the corner. When I reached it, I bent and unzipped the main compartment. The first thing I saw was a cheap disposable phone, one I’ve never seen Tav use before. I moved it to the side and dug around the stack of clothing until I found a small toiletry bag. I unzipped it, digging through toothpaste and aftershave until I found a small Ziplock bag of pink pills. With my teeth gnashed together to the point of pain, I shook a pill out and turned it over in my hand. My heart lurched at the sound of Tav’s first footfall on the stairs.

I glanced down at the pill in my palm, the initials THX imprinted on one side.

I shoved the bag of pills back into Tav’s duffle and closed the zipper quickly. By the time Tav reached the top stair, I was standing at the bed with a smile, pillow in hand. “Thought I’d come tuck you in.”

“You’re so good to me, baby. I don’t deserve you.”

I only smiled because we both knew he was right.

I spent the next few minutes tucking Tav into bed and placing a soft kiss on his lips. I smiled sweetly, then moved away from the bed, flipping the light off as I left the room. But when I reached the bottom of the stairs and entered the kitchen, I knew something wasn’t right. Tav had always been quiet and distracted, but something about his demeanor since he found me in the cemetery felt downright evasive. I pulled a search engine up on my phone and typed in medication and THX in the search bar. What came back nearly laid me out. THX stood for thyoxolin, a paralytic commonly used for surgeries. I tried to blink my tears away but they only came faster. If I couldn’t trust Tav, who in this world could I trust? Nothing was as it seemed — even when I thought I’d finally found a sense of safety, the rug was yanked out from under me. I’d lost so many years living in an illusion of love that was never even real.

An hour later, and with Tav’s tiny stash of pills tucked in my pocket, I settled in bed next to the man that had single-handedly saved my life and also ruined it. My mind refused to sleep, but I forced my eyes shut and let my breathing deepen, matching Tav’s breath for breath. I’d spent the last hour drinking an entire pot of drip coffee and searching for any other clues that might clue me into Tav’s next steps. I lay still but conscious, my mind running away with me as every horrifying Dateline episode I’d ever seen ran on repeat in my head.

I was fighting to keep my brain awake when all of a sudden, Tav rolled over and crawled out of bed. My heart clenched as he moved on quiet steps, not into the bathroom like I assumed but down the stairs to the main living area. The fridge door never opened, the water faucet never turned on, instead I heard the soft snick of the front door opening and closing. I waited silently in the dark, listening for any sound of him. What could he possibly be doing outside in the middle of the night?

And then I heard it. The sound of metal in dirt. Tav was shoveling.

I swallowed, counting the silent beats between the dreadful scraping noises, realizing he was moving fast. Digging deep. Tears wet my cheeks as I stood and moved to the window. The dim shreds of moonlight slicing through the evergreens did little to overcome the darkness. I gulped, succumbing to the cadence of Tav’s shoveling. I stood for several long moments hoping to distinguish where exactly Tav was digging. The scrape of metal against dirt seemed to come from the western corner of the property, maybe just inside the towering evergreens that were hiding everything from me.

It was then the quiet realization came to me.

Tav was digging a grave.

My grave.

Chapter 47

“Babe — wanna go for a hike?”

“Our flight is first thing in the morning, I don’t think we have time.” His reply came quickly.

“Oh, please. There’s this great trail right out back that leads to a gorgeous little waterfall. It’s hidden — we’ll have it all to ourselves. It will be so romantic!” I circled my arms around his waist and nuzzled into the back of his neck.

He sighed, sipped his morning orange juice, then set it down and turned, planting a kiss on my forehead. “Okay — a morning hike with you sounds perfect.”

I smiled, inhaling his soothing, woodsy scent one last time. I’ll miss this, I thought — maybe not him exactly, considering I’d never been able to trust him, but I’d miss having someone there. I wouldn’t say I’d been lonely in Idaho. Bradley had been visiting a few days a month after all, but the day in and day out of my life there had been a mostly solitary existence.

“Maybe we can even go for a skinny-dip at the waterfall.” I wiggled my eyebrows at him.

His grin split, but he didn’t laugh. He patted me on the bottom, then moved to the front door to push his red Nike sneakers on his feet. Minutes later we were walking through the woods, my heart rattling with every step. I knew what I had to do, I just didn’t know if I had it in me to do it. Again. My mind flashed back to that moment in the hotel room a year ago as I plunged a syringe into his arm. I’d hated him then, felt so betrayed by his role in my downfall. I had no doubt that Tav would have killed me to keep his family secrets and save his own ass — had he finally returned to finish what he started?

My gaze swept the bed of rusted pine needles that lined the forest floor. Our steps were silent, the breeze catching my hair and swirling it around my neck like a noose. With every step my anxiety deepened — one of us wouldn’t make it out of this hike alive. I knew that much.

We finally turned a bend in the trail and the slow trickle of water over stones filled the air. What had become my peaceful place of solitude and refuge this last year would now be a grave. We stopped at the edge of the trail. The tall precipice that overlooked the waterfall and wading pool below was enchanting, but I couldn’t let myself relax into the scene like I normally would. With warmth heating my veins, I looped our fingers together and leaned into his solid form. Just like old times.

“I’ll miss this.” I squeezed his hand in mine. The delay in his reaction alerted me to a change in his system.

His gaze turned to meet mine, and I noticed that a haze of swimming confusion had descended in his eyes. The thyoxolin seemed to be working, but only ever so slowly. Maybe I hadn’t given him enough, maybe the dosage he had was only enough for me — a woman, smaller in stature than him. I’d only managed to snag a few pills in the hopes that he wouldn’t notice any missing, that he wouldn’t realize I was onto his plan. Or was I only making assumptions? I hadn’t managed to figure out what exactly he was digging last night — I only knew that he came from the far western corner of the yard after spending nearly three hours there.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” I squeezed his hand.

“Gorgeous. But so is Boulder, beautiful hiking trails everywhere. You’ll love it.”

I suppressed the thousand other questions that ran through my mind. “Are you okay? You seem tired.”

“Guess I didn’t sleep well last night.”

“Maybe we should head back — you can have a little nap.”

He turned into me, arm wrapping around my shoulder. “A nap sounds perfect, maybe we could both use one.”

“Maybe,” I hummed.

Tav’s arm was heavy on my shoulders as he moved slowly in the direction of the trail we’d come from. He was groggy, I could tell, but I didn’t think it was enough for me to overpower him. I’d tried to do some reading overnight on thyoxolin, but without any knowledge of the dosage Tav had with him, I was left only with the hope that whatever I’d given him in his orange juice that morning was enough to do damage.

Tav and I walked slowly in the direction of the cabin, but just before the trail opened up and the tiny A-frame came into view, we reached a fork in the trail. “Let’s take the long way home.”

Before he could reply, I was guiding us in the direction of the western corner of the yard. My eyes scanned the forest floor in search of any sort of disturbance to the dirt. I saw nothing, and I briefly wondered if I had this all wrong — maybe Tav had only been burying evidence. Maybe his moonlight gravedigging was innocent, only meant to bury some paperwork or something that might implicate his father in yet another crime.

Tav stumbled over a root in the path then, his palm tightening on my arm to help steady him. Neither of us said anything, only continued our walk as I searched frantically for any evidence that he was here, shovel in hand, last night. We were nearing the end of the trail before it opened into the yard, sunlight splitting the evergreens and casting eerie shadows. Tav’s hiking shoe landed on a pinecone, the brittle crunch of it loud in the silence that hung between us. My heart clambered stubbornly as I realized this was it — if we both made it back into that cabin alive, only one of us would be walking back out again. And I had a feeling it would be me that would never feel the warm sunshine on my skin again.

Tav stumbled again. I grasped his hand tightly, but he was swaying. I whispered, “Are you okay?”

A soft grunt was his only reply. I paused, unsure of what to do. I couldn’t lead him back to the cabin, I didn’t even know if he’d make it that far.

My heartbeat rattled as I realized this was my moment. I gnashed my teeth, desperate for one last shred of evidence that Tav was planning to end my life out here.

“We almost back?” he slurred.

“Yeah, the house is just through that grove of pines.” I pointed in the general direction of the cabin and that’s when I saw it.

The shovel.

Chapter 48

“What izz this?” he mumbled as I led him off trail a few steps, my gaze focused on the shovel piercing the dirt just ahead. I didn’t reply to his question. I was hoping he didn’t notice where we were — that he was here just last night digging my grave — but then, these woods look wildly different at night than they do in the daytime.

Even more so with a truckload of tranquilizers in your system.

We reached the shovel, the tip sunk into a mound of dirt beside the thick trunk of an evergreen, and just next to it, a human-sized hole in the ground. We reached the edge, his eyes unfocused as I planted my hands on his face. I let a moment of sympathy fill my eyes as I thought of all that we’d been through together over the years. With him I thought I’d found happily ever after, but instead I’d uncovered lies. So many lies. Our castle was built out of sand, and little did I know that I was playing the part of the fool, not the princess.

“I wish I could say I’m going to regret this.”

He grunted, blinked, rubbed at his eyes and then opened them again. He was having trouble focusing on anything. I planted my palms on his chest and leaned in for one last kiss from the man I thought I loved.

“Thank you for finally showing me who you really are. I never deserved you — I deserve so much better,” I said. “Thank you for helping me find myself, for teaching me never to rely on a man again. None of you can be trusted.”

“W-what?” I saw a flicker of awareness before it slides away again.

“Have a good trip, baby.” A sinister smile curled my lips before I shoved him with all of my strength. He stumbled once, arms shooting into the air. Just as he began his descent into the fresh grave he’d dug for me just last night, he clasped my wrist and we fell into the black hole together. His other palm locked around my wrist and we began to struggle.

“Fuck!” I tried to pull away but he was stronger than I’d thought he’d be. Black dirt covered us as I tried to wrest myself from his grip. Grunts filled the air before I freed one hand and scooped dirt into his eyes. I threw more in his mouth and then clamped down on his lips in an attempt to suffocate him. He was strong though and he threw me off easily. I landed against the opposite wall of dirt and he dug a foot into my chest. The air escaped my lungs and for a moment I thought, This is it. My life will end here, in a shallow grave in the mountains never to be seen again.

He attempted to focus long enough to lock his hand around my wrist again, but his eyes were still blurry. His sense of perception must have been off because he swiped at the air without even coming close to me. It’s then I remembered the shovel only a few feet from the grave. If I could climb out quickly enough I could knock it over, grab the handle, and land the final death blow.

I stepped on his shin to help boost me up, clutching at the wall of dirt as I tried to climb out. He grasped my ankle and tried to yank me backwards but his strength was still fading. I kicked him off easily, reaching for the handle of the shovel. It was still just out of reach. I needed another few inches. I kicked dirt into his face then, yelling and screaming as loudly as if I’d just seen a bear in the woods. Hot tears filled my eyes as I scraped and crawled and scrambled my way up the loose dirt wall, every footfall causing more of the wall to crumble beneath my weight.

He caught the edge of my shoe and yanked me back into him, but just as I fell, my fingers grasped a single root that was jutting out from the dirt. I hung on to it tightly, heaving with all of my strength until I overpowered him and crawled out of my grave. My hands clasped the handle of the shovel as I pulled it from the dirt, turning and swinging it wildly, expecting him to be hovering behind me.

But he wasn’t. He was sitting on his ass in the grave looking like a confused little boy.

I wanted to drop the shovel and run to him, my body accustomed to comforting him in times of distress. But comforting this man might have killed me.

“I wish it didn’t have to be this way,” I finally uttered.

The sound of the first thwack of the spade kissing his skull will haunt me for years to come. The rest, I blocked out.

Minutes or hours later, I stumbled into the cabin covered in dirt and sweat.

I gulped down a ball of hot tears as I walked straight to the shower to comfort myself under the warm spray. I stood in the water until it turned ice cold, and even then I allowed it to seep into my muscles to remind myself this was real. I am not the same woman I was when I first moved into this cabin. Now, I am a murderer.

I turned the faucet off, cutting the stream of water and stepping out of the shower. I wrapped myself in a towel, padding out into the kitchen as I thought about the mess I’d have to clean up. I’d have to get rid of all evidence that he was there — that he even existed at all. I walked to the fridge, planning to pour myself a glass of white wine in an attempt to calm my nerves, when a soft grunt interrupted the silence.

With terror surging through my system, I spun, eyes landing squarely on the last person I expected to see.

Oh fuck. He’s still here.

Bradley.

“So you did it,” is all he said.

“How long have you been here?” I spit.

“Not long enough to save you from yourself, apparently.” His reply was easy, casual, unnerving.

“What do you mean?”

Bradley raised a single eyebrow. “I always told you I’d be here if you ever need to bury a body — never imagined you’d take it literally. Geez, I’ve only been gone two days. You move fast.”

I shoved my chin in the air. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Turning back to the fridge, I took out a bottle of wine and sat it on the small table between us. “Want a drink?”

Bradley’s eyes sparkled with interest as he took me in. “I always like to have a drink after I kill too.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, poured us each a glass, and pushed it across the table at him. I feel every part the cold-blooded killer he’s making me out to be, but I’ll never admit it. Not even on my deathbed. “Join me in celebrating my freedom?” He grinned. “I’d love to.”

We clinked our glasses together in cheers and then sipped. When I finished, I set the glass down and sighed.

“So what’s next for you, Ms. Fremont?”

I shrug. “I can’t stay here. Guess I’ll get on the plane for Boulder tomorrow and then decide.”

“Well—” he cleared his throat — “you may wanna check that flight.”

“What do you mean?”

“There is no flight to Boulder tomorrow.” He sipped, regarding me evenly. “Never was.”

“What? What do you mean? How do you know?”

“I have access to the FAA database — every passenger on every flight coming and going in this country. Tav had a one-way ticket tomorrow, and it was not to Boulder.”

“Where then?”

“Mexico City.”

“He . . . we—”

“There was no we. Tav owed money to the Mexican cartel — he had twenty-four hours to handle you and then get to those lockboxes, otherwise it would have been him in a shallow grave. Ironic, kinda.” He smiled. “If you’d been the one to pick up the lockbox like you were supposed to, you probably would have been dead inside twelve hours.”

“Oh my God.” A shiver of terror ran through me at just the idea of being on the cartel’s radar. “W-what could possibly be in that lockbox that’s worth taking a life for?”

Bradley shrugged. “Scandal. Power. Sex. Money. Politics. Everything in the world worth hiding if you’re that kind of person.”

“Do you think . . .” I trailed off, afraid of the answer to my next question. “Do you think Tav knew if I picked up that lockbox I would be dead?”

Bradley’s smile turned to a frown. “I think so . . . I think that was the plan all along. His debts get paid, his family’s biggest liability — you — is taken care of—”

“But he tried to tell me about my past — the childhood videos and photos at the chalet. Why would he want me to know about that if he was planning to get rid of me?”

“I think he did love you, Freya, in his own way. I think he wanted you to know the truth until he got in over his head and couldn’t see any other way out.”

“And then instead of planning our wedding, he started plotting my murder.”

“He had all his bases covered when he left you on that mountain.”

“And in every scenario, he gets off scot-free. He would have just walked away to start a new life . . .” I whispered.

Sympathy warmed his irises. “You did what you had to — you did the only thing you could to save yourself. I’m proud of you, kid.”

Tears cut the back of my throat like razor blades. “That grave he dug last night really was meant for me.”

He nodded. “Once I realized what his plan was, I booked a private flight to the nearest airport. It wasn’t soon enough, obviously. I’m glad you took matters into your own hands — I white-knuckled my way through that flight so worried I’d be too late to save you.”

The dam broke then as waves of tears covered my cheeks. Bradley came to my side, hauling me into his arms and holding me so tightly I thought he might never let go. I realized then that I didn’t even want him to.

“Do you still want me in your life? Now that I’m this?”

“What?” he chuckled. “A cold-blooded killer?”

I laughed and cried at the same time.

“Of course I want you — I always have and I’ll never stop.” He rubbed my back, making me feel so small in his arms. “The question is whether you want me. I’ll always be this — I can only ever offer you half-truths because of my job. What we have, I’m afraid it would always be . . . an illusion.”

I sniffed, composed myself, and smiled into his loving eyes. “Well, apparently all of life is an illusion.” I pulled him into me for a kiss. “And I choose this one. I didn’t have a choice about the life I was born into, but I choose this. I choose this wild, crazy life with you. I choose love even if our love is all based on a lie.”

“No, baby, that’s the only thing I know for sure — my love for you is the only real and honest thing in my life. Every day I promise to wake up and choose you. You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried.”

“Even with all of my baggage?” I bit down on my lower lip.

“You do have a fuck-ton of baggage, but I wouldn’t want to carry anyone else’s,” he teased before his lips melted into mine and he mumbled, “Marry me, Freya?”

Tears swam in my eyes as I nodded furiously. “Yes. A hundred yeses. I would love to marry you.”

His gorgeous grin deepened. “Damn woman, made me wait long enough.”

I smiled, feeling the warmth of his embrace, and for the first time in my life I felt home — not in a place, but with him. Our love may have been built on a foundation of lies, but it was ours. I vowed then to choose him every day of forever. After all, he knew the deepest and darkest parts of my soul. While I knew nothing for sure, I knew that because of the secrets we shared, I’d have to keep this man close.

Or I’d have to kill him.

THE END

Acknowledgments

I'm so lucky to be a part of the most wonderful and supportive community of women. I owe the deepest gratitude to the readers that have read my wild stories over the years, took time out of their lives to visit me at book signings around the world, and shared my books with their friends. You make my dreams come true every day and there aren't enough words to express my thanks. I love talking to fellow readers — send me an email at info@adrianeleigh.com and say hi!

Also by Adriane Leigh

MY PERFECT FAMILY

THE PERFECT ESCAPE