A shuddering breath escaped. Hands on the wheel shook. Fifteen years evaporated and she was back in that time. Her best friend had gone missing. Everyone in town turned out to searchfor Abby, only it was as if she’d disappeared through a wrinkle in time. Vanished without a trace.
And it was all Charlie’s fault.
Charlie could see something was troubling Abby. She said she needed to talk. Charlie agreed to sneak out that night and meet up at the bridge instead of encouraging Abby to wait until morning. The only smart one among them was Lila who had refused to go.
A winter storm had blown in earlier in the evening. Charlie had her misgivings about going out, but it was too late to call it off without alerting Abby’s parents. And so, she snuck out and waited.
Only Abby never showed.
“No.”
Charlie forced those memories back where they belonged. She couldn’t change anything about that night, but she could bear the guilt of her part in the bad decision. Abby was gone. Her uncle, the sheriff at the time, believed she’d been kidnapped not far from her home. There were signs of tire tracks. Pete originally thought whoever took her had fled the area.
Through the years, Charlie had prayed a thousand prayers for answers. So far, God chose to remain silent.
Christmas lights twinkled on the storefronts along Main Street as she drove past the town she’d once called home. Picture-perfect. To anyone else this place would seem like something straight out of Norman Rockwell’s small-town paintings. To anyone but Charlie that is. She knew the truth. And the cold knot in her gut served as a reminder of the ugly secret hidden beneath the tranquil outward appearance of Pine Haven. Yet once you saw it, you could never go back to innocence.
At the edge of town, Charlie turned onto the county road that would take her farther into the mountains and home.
Home.The word stuck in her throat.
The last time she’d seen Pete in person stood out in her memory. Seven years. She should have come home sooner. He needed her. Pete had let the weight of what happened to Abby shadow his life as well. Long after he retired from the sheriff’s office, he kept searching for answers. Pete kept years of journals locked away with notes on the case. He believed Abby’s disappearance was somehow connected to what happened to Charlie’s parents dying in the house fire. Though the fire had been ruled an accident, Pete never believed it.
She and her uncle spoke several times during the week. Recently, he’d talked a lot about what he wanted to happen when he passed away. She hadn’t wanted to hear it, but he’d insisted she listen. At the time, Pete told her it was just in case something were to happen. Now she found herself going through every single one of their conversations looking for something she missed. There had been something in his voice. Fear maybe? The disturbing thought rippled through her mind. She’d never once seen Pete fearful.
Charlie asked him what was wrong, but like the strong lawman that he was, he hadn’t wanted to burden her.
The road turned to gravel beneath the layer of snow. On either side, blue spruce, lodgepole and ponderosa pines, subalpine firs, and bare aspen trees grew close to the road.
Like taking a ride through a Christmas tree farm, Pete used to say. It made her smile.
There were only two cabins up this way. She passed the one cabin and tried not to think about the person who lived there. Ryan McCabe. She’d broken his heart, but hers had been broken too.
After Ryan’s call, Charlie had made the decision to drive from her home in DC instead of flying because she’d needed time to prepare for what lay ahead. Not just the new reality Uncle Petewasn’t going to be home, but the truth that she would have to face Ryan again.
Her snow tires gripped the road as she continued the steady uphill climb. Pete loved the fact that his place was the last cabin up the mountain. He said it made him feel like he was on top of the world.
Darkness up here was piercing. The headlights barely made a dent in it through the snowflakes swirling around. By the time she reached her uncle’s overgrown driveway, her fingers hurt from gripping the wheel so tight.
Charlie bit her lip to fight back tears when she remembered all the times she’d been down this drive in her lifetime.
She turned onto a drive covered in deep snow. It had been a while since anyone had driven down it. What was left of faint tracks were probably from Ryan checking on the place.
One final curve in the drive and then the two-story cabin came into view. Her headlights highlighted the place Pete had taken pride in building for his “bride,” as he called Aunt Ailene who had passed after only a few years of marriage.
Built from logs milled from his own backyard and river stone from the nearby Pine Haven River, it was a tribute to Pete’s craftsmanship.
Now, the place sat silent. Dark. Snow-laden conifers and dark silhouettes from the mountains beyond gave the place an eerie winter wonderland feel.
Charlie sat for the longest time unable to summon the strength to do what came next. Go inside that silent tribute to Pete and face the place without him.
Since hearing of her uncle’s death, the world had felt a little darker and colder.
She grabbed hold of the key and killed the engine before climbing out while tugging her wool coat tighter around herbody. The bitter winter storm sent wind screaming around the countryside like a rabid animal.
Her warm boots crunched over ice-encrusted snow until she reached the porch.
Her uncle’s old rocker squeaked as it rocked in the wind. Charlie jumped and whipped toward it, her heart racing.
