She wasn’t sure if the last words were a lie or not.
“Alanna—”
Peter stepped closer still, despite Chance angled protectively in front of her.
Chance let out another low warning growl, but Peter only glanced at him, seemingly unconcerned. Apparently he recognized that the St. Bernard wouldn’t hurt anyone unless they were a real threat to her.
“This isn’t like Darcy,” Alanna admitted, the words breaking free before she’d even realized she thought them.
It was true. The Altiers had gone years between grabbing kids. Abducting two within a few days, while on the run from the law, was reckless.
Was Darcy trying to create a brand-new, ready-made family? Did she want to re-create what she’d had with Alanna and her “siblings”? Had she simply snapped from the grief of her husband’s death, after years being locked away, after losing the kids she’d raised?
It was possible. And yet, something didn’t seem right. It didn’t seem like Darcy at all.
“Are we sure she’s the one who took those kids?” Alanna looked from Peter to Tate, trying to read the truth in their eyes because she wasn’t sure she’d hear it from their lips.
The pity intensified on Tate’s face, in the way his lips crumpled, in the tilt of his head.
Peter just looked exasperated. “What do you think? That someone else is following her—an escaped fugitive—and they just happen to be doing what she did for eighteen years? Really?”
“No,” Alanna said softly, because it sounded ridiculous. Obviously it was Darcy. But if she was acting this out of character, even if Alanna could find her, would she be able to get through to her? Would she be able to change anything? Or was coming here a total waste of time?
* * *
THE DOOR TO their old home had been left unlocked. It opened with a hard shove, groaning in a way that told Alanna no one had been through in a long time. She slipped underneath the faded yellow tape that had probably once read Do Not Cross but had become illegible over five Alaskan winters.
Her heart began to pound as she stepped over the threshold and a thousand memories hit her at once. Darcy and Julian sitting side by side, holding hands on the blue couch Darcy had upholstered herself. Alanna’s older “brother” Johnny staring at the chessboard in the corner, contemplating his next move in a long-running game with Julian. Her younger “siblings” Sydney and Drew sitting cross-legged on the floor, teaching their youngest “sister” Valerie to make a pair of snowshoes.
After Darcy and Julian had been arrested, Johnny had stared at her with disbelief and confusion. In all the years since, he’d refused to speak to her. Five years of Alanna’s letters had been returned unopened. Yet at least once a year, Alanna still tried.
Sydney, three years younger than Alanna and the “sibling” she’d always felt closest to, had tried to keep in touch. In the beginning, she and Alanna had spoken on the phone almost nightly. Slowly, though, the frequency of those calls had decreased, until now Alanna only heard from her every few weeks.
Alanna stomped her feet on the heavy rug still lining the entryway as Chance pushed his way in beside her, knocking free one end of the police tape. The broken tape immediately blew outward, dancing in the wind. Alanna shut the door behind it, closing out the frigid wind and falling snow.
Beside her, Chance did a full-body shake, sending melted snow everywhere. Then he walked into the main room as if he’d been there a hundred times and settled in front of the dark fireplace. It was as if he knew this place had once been her home and he felt at home here, too.
She followed more slowly, each step farther into the house feeling as if she was stepping backward in time. As she ran her hand over the soft, worn blanket on the corner of the sofa, she could picture Drew and Valerie curled underneath it, one on each end of the couch, their toes meeting in the middle.
She’d tried to keep in touch with them, too, but their parents had cut off all contact when they’d gone home. Drew would turn eighteen next year, which meant Alanna could try again. But Valerie was only eleven. By the time she was an adult, how much of her time with Alanna would she remember? Valerie had been six when the Altier “family” had been broken apart—only a year older than Alanna when she’d been kidnapped. Had her memories of Alanna already blurred around the edges, the same way Alanna’s had of the Morgans over the years?
The “siblings” she’d spent the majority of her childhood with were now scattered across the country, no two in the same state. Her video chats with Sydney were the closest she’d come to seeing any of them since that day when police had stopped their car and screamed at her “parents” to get out.
Alanna blinked back tears that suddenly flooded her vision. She wasn’t here to wallow in regrets or wonder if she’d made the right choice five years ago. She was here for clues.
It had been two days since Darcy was spotted in northern Canada, since she’d grabbed another young child, this time a two-year-old girl. According to news reports, there had been no confirmed sightings of her since.
Two days ago, after talking to Peter and Tate, Alanna had been ready to head home. Yesterday, she’d even packed her small suitcase and looked for flights. She’d finally picked up one of the calls from her sister Kensie, promising she’d be heading home on Saturday. Instead, today, she’d texted Kensie that she was staying a little longer. She might not be able to talk Darcy down as she’d planned, but she could still help. If anyone could find Darcy now, it was Alanna.
The problem was, if Darcy was speeding back to Alaska, kidnapping more kids along the way, it meant five years in prison had definitely changed her. But not in the way Alanna had expected.
Throughout her childhood, Alanna had always seen Darcy as the “parent” who was the dreamer. Easily distracted, always lost in her own thoughts, she had a million ideas but rarely the initiative to see them all through. It was Julian who took her ideas and made them reality.
All through the house were examples of the way her “parents” had fit together, worked together. The fireplace, for instance, with its border of colorful tiles, had started as an idea Darcy had sketched out to resemble the aurora borealis at night. But it was Julian who’d purchased those tiles, taught all of them to affix them to the fireplace. Darcy had envisioned the extra room toward the back of the house as a place to homeschool and Julian had found schoolbooks for all of them. Then, of course, there were the kidnappings.
Alanna hugged her arms around herself, cold despite being out of the wind and snow. But the heat was off in the house, her breath making cloud puffs in the air.
One of the clearest memories she had—the memory that still woke her in the middle of the night—was that moment when Julian had reached out from his car and yanked her inside. Darcy had been at the wheel, speeding away dangerously as Alanna yelped in surprise and fright, squirming to look out the rear window. She had watched Kensie get smaller in the distance, even as her sister ran after their vehicle, screaming for help.
When Alanna was taken, the Altiers had already had Johnny for four years. Even then, Johnny had barely remembered his birth family and he’d already adjusted to living with the Altiers. The four of them had moved constantly in those early years, never staying in one place too long.
Alanna had only been five years old then, totally reliant on three people she didn’t trust. Peter was probably right that being so dependent on them from such a young age had helped forge a deeper connection. Slowly, Alanna’s fear and hatred had shifted. Her “parents” and “brother” had worn her down with love and caring. As guilty as she’d felt about it, she’d started to care for them, too.
By the time they’d grabbed Sydney, Alanna hadn’t forgotten the Morgans. But she’d felt like she had a new family.
That was when she’d learned how the kidnappings worked. Darcy and Julian always talked about wanting a big family, but apparently D
arcy couldn’t get pregnant. Every few years, Darcy would see a kid—one who looked like an Altier—and felt as if the child was already hers. Then Julian would make it a reality.
Darcy doing the kidnappings without Julian seemed so counter to the way her “mother” worked. Alanna had come here thinking she could talk some sense into her, make her realize her actions were emotional and unethical. But abducting two kids, in such a short span of time? It meant Darcy was different now, that she was taking on both hers and Julian’s past parental roles. It meant she wasn’t the person Alanna remembered.
When Alanna was a child, she’d always been able to talk Darcy into things to make her happy. One more story at bedtime. A warmer pair of boots so she could spend more time playing in the snow. A later bedtime so she could stay up reading or playing games with her “siblings.” But now? With everything that had changed while Darcy was in jail? Would Alanna be able to interrupt Darcy’s plan?
Shutting out the memories along with worries of what would happen if she did find Darcy, Alanna took a deep breath and looked around the room. Chance had gotten up without her noticing and was standing next to her, staring up at her with those dark brown eyes. A string of drool in the corner of his droopy mouth nearly stretched to the wooden floor and made Alanna smile.
She stroked his soft fur, then said, “Let’s get to work.”
His head swiveled, as if taking in the small front room and asking, Doing what?
“We’re looking for somewhere else Darcy could hide,” Alanna told him.
He tilted his head at her, making the drool break free, and Alanna laughed. It loosened the tension in her chest, was the impetus she needed to get moving.
Five years ago, when Kensie had shown up at their house searching for her, Darcy and Julian had bundled all the kids quickly into the car and fled. Alanna had initially thought they were going back to what they’d done years ago, skipping from state to state, hiding. Then she’d learned Julian had a specific hiding place in mind and it was nearby. They’d never made it, though, because the police had caught up to them. As far as Alanna knew, other property owned by the Altiers—in their name or some other name—had never been uncovered. But that didn’t mean it didn’t exist.
If Darcy was returning to Desparre, it was unlikely she’d come back to the cabin. That was too dangerous. But some other hiding spot her husband had scoped out years ago that police and the FBI had never uncovered? That seemed reasonable.
Alanna didn’t know where it was. But there had to be a clue in this cabin. She walked from room to room slowly, her gaze lighting on every object, all the pieces of their lives that had been left behind. She picked up old books, looked through cupboards now littered with rodent droppings and then retraced her steps, trying to see it all anew.
Two hours later, she held a small piece of paper in her hand. She’d found it taped to the inside cover of one of Darcy’s old drawing books. If the police had found it five years ago, apparently they hadn’t thought anything of the random symbols. But they meant something to Alanna: a goofy code she and her “siblings” had created one particularly frigid winter when they’d all been stuck inside for two weeks. Darcy had encouraged them, laughing as they’d constructed what they thought was a tightly encrypted cipher. Translated, the symbols in Darcy’s book were a series of latitudes and longitudes. Coordinates.
Alanna stared at the list, five places she knew in her gut were hiding spots. Then she looked over at Chance. “Let’s start at the top.”
Chance must have felt the mix of excitement and anxiety in her words because he got to his feet quickly and chased her to the door. When she flung it open, her excitement transitioned immediately to dread.
The snow that had been falling slowly for the past few hours had picked up intensity, racing faster for the ground, piling on top of the foot and a half’s worth that had already come down over the past two days. Alanna squinted at the gray sky, then at the truck she’d rented. It was built for off-roading in the Alaskan terrain. But there was no rental vehicle hardy enough for the furious climate Desparre could spawn.
In November, conditions could turn dangerous fast. Alanna checked the weather app on her phone, which indicated that the snow was supposed to stop before the top of the hour, only a few minutes away. As if she’d willed it, when she looked back up, the speed of the falling snow had decreased, the snowflakes seeming to shrink in size.
“I think we can do it,” she told Chance, glancing again at the paper in her hand. According to her navigation app, the first location was less than half an hour’s drive. And she’d spent years in the unpredictable Desparre weather, understood how to take care of herself in it.
Chance bolted out the door, bounding in circles in the fresh snow before coming to a stop by the back door of the truck. He glanced back at her, as if to say, What are you waiting for?
She hurried after him, slower in the heavy snow, and opened the truck door for him.
Chance leaped into the back seat, bringing snow with him and making Alanna wish she’d brought more towels.
She ran to the front, turning the heat up to high as soon as she was inside. Tucking the paper into the inside pocket of her coat, she eased the truck carefully out of the driveway, happy to see that the snowfall was slowing even more.
Still, the roads near the cabin were unpaved. The town didn’t bother to clear them and the people who lived out this way all had snowmobiles for when winter got too tough for even their all-weather vehicles. So, Alanna drove slowly and carefully, following in other tire tracks where she could. She headed farther away from Desparre, but down the mountain this time, on roads that wound around massive old trees.
It was the route they’d been on five years ago, when the police had caught up to them.
Snow shot out from beneath the tires, fluffy stuff that would have been perfect for building snowmen. Luckily, there was no ice underneath it. On one side of her, the mountain continued upward; on the other was the cliff edge.
She gripped the wheel tightly, slightly less confident after five years of living near Chicago, with their milder winters, snow removal services, far-reaching cell towers and easy access to help. She glanced in her rearview mirror at Chance, lying across the back seat, but his head up, watching out the window. He met her gaze in the mirror, trusting, and she wondered if she was making a mistake.
But when she glanced at her navigation app, she realized she’d driven farther than she’d expected. The snow had stopped falling from the sky, but every once and a while, a big hunk of it slid off a tree branch, startling her as it plopped onto the windshield. She was close now. Her heart rate picked up in anticipation of finding the hideout Julian had probably built, at the possibility of finding Darcy there now.
Then she rounded a corner and swore as she stomped on the brake. The truck swerved slightly in the snow and Alanna clutched the wheel harder, angling away from the steep drop to her right.
Ahead of her, the road was blocked. A pile of snow higher than the front of her truck covered the entire road to the edge of the mountain. She couldn’t tell how far it went, but as she leaned forward and glanced up through her windshield, she could tell why it had fallen. Avalanche.
“Guess we’ll have to move on to the next spot,” she told Chance, but just as quickly, she decided to put that plan on hold. Where there’d been one avalanche, there could be another. Best to get away from the mountain and hope the snow melted.
She backed the truck up slowly, carefully as she got ready to round the bend again backward, since there was no room to turn around. But the tires slid on her anyway, and she overcorrected, more afraid of the drop-off than bumping the other side of the mountain. Except when her rear bumper hit the rock, the truck also slid into a rut. When she hit the gas again, the wheels spun, but the truck wouldn’t go anywhere.
Cursing, Alanna pulled her hood over her head and hopped out of
the truck to grab the shovel from the back. As soon as she stepped outside, a fierce shiver rushed through her body at the force of the wind. And as she opened the back door, Chance leaped out.
“No!” She made a grab for his collar even as he spun back toward her, but a noise overhead made her look up. A rumbling like thunder, but far too close. An avalanche.
Years of living in Alaska rushed back to her, as she stared at the mountaintop, instantly seeing the path of the snow. It would probably miss her if she backed away fast enough. But it was definitely going to take her truck. And Chance, standing too close to it…
She grabbed for him just as the wall of snow rushed downward, sweeping him up with it. Then her arms closed around him, just under his front legs. She clung tight, even as the snow slammed into her, hard and fast, shoving them both toward the edge of the mountain.
CHAPTER FIVE
Alanna Morgan knew something.
Peter had been following her around half the day. Unlike when he’d last followed her around with Tate three days ago, he was alone today. Saturday was his day off. Unfortunately, that meant he was in his personal vehicle instead of the police SUV. Although his truck could handle the Desparre winters, his police vehicle was equipped for anything. As Alanna headed farther away from Desparre, taking dangerous back roads down the mountain like she’d driven them a million times, Peter’s knuckles went white gripping his steering wheel.
He’d grown up on the other side of the mountain, in an area almost as prone to crazy weather as Desparre. But the town of Luna—where his parents and older siblings lived still—was much flatter. They occasionally got nasty avalanches off this side of the mountain, but being at a lower altitude usually meant slightly fewer dangers. It definitely meant easier driving.
Since joining the Desparre police department last year, he’d been up on this mountain a few times, usually doing welfare checks. He’d driven it in far worse weather than this, but he’d never done it while chasing after a former victim, potential new accomplice or possible target. He’d never done it while trailing someone who seemed to know too well how to lose a tail.
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