“Okay, I’m going to go change, and I’ll meet you back here in—” He stopped when he tuned in to someone walking up the steps.
“Who’s that?”
“Not sure.” He headed over to the door. I noticed his posture became tense when he checked the window and opened the door.
“Hey, is Shannan here?”
I pushed the blanket off and met Kim as Blake stepped back to welcome her inside.
“No.” I crossed my arms at the sudden rush of cold that followed her in. “I went over earlier, and she wasn’t there, but her car was gone, so I figured she was in town.”
“Her car is at Jeff’s getting the brakes repaired.” I could tell she was worried, so I instantly went to her and gave her a reassuring hug.
“Blake, can you call her?” Kim asked and shot me a look. She didn’t need to explain. We all knew Shannan’s love for him.
“Straight to voicemail.” His tone told me he was kicking into work mode. “When was the last time you spoke with her?”
“I was with her when you called earlier, and that was it.” Suddenly, something hit her. “Oh, shit.”
“What?” he asked.
“She’s so damn stubborn!”
“Kim, what?” I touched her arm, growing more concerned by the second.
“I can bet you any money she went out looking for another tree.”
“Is that why there’s a tree upside down in the yard?”
“Yeah,” she shook her head, “she was trying to re-enact a childhood memory for me, and it backfired because she chopped down a white spruce, and it made the whole house smell like cat piss.”
“Oh!” Everything clicked for me. “That’s what the smell was. Yeah, not a good tree at all.”
“I never thought she’d go back out to get another.” Kim rubbed her eyes as Blake handed me a flashlight. I immediately tugged on my boots and jacket.
“Let’s go see if we can find her. It’ll be hard because the snow would have covered her tracks by now, but hopefully, she didn’t get too far.”
We headed across the property and disappeared into the woods, each taking turns calling her name into the frigid night air.
A few times, I slipped, but Blake was right there to help me. “Please be careful, hun, I need you walking.”
I chuckled at his comment and tried to be mindful of where I stepped.
“Shannan!” Kim was ahead of us. Her flashlight scanned back and forth near the base of the tree trunks, while she struggled forward through the snowdrifts. Though the thick branches provided a degree of protection from the snowfall, some places were much deeper than others.
By minute fifty-six, Kim’s tone had changed from nervous to full-out panic mode. Not that I was ready to admit it yet, but I was starting to worry, too.
Blake was calculating time, versus steps, versus where the cluster of Douglas fir were. I found his detective head fascinating.
Kim grabbed my arm and stopped me mid-step. It was hard to see her face, but I could tell by the way she was breathing, bad thoughts had worked their way into her head.
“Hey,” I covered her glove with my mitten, “we made a deal no one else was allowed to leave.” I squeezed her hand, referring to the loss of my parents. “We all agreed. Right?”
“Right.” She took an uneasy breath. “Right, that’s right.”
We continued to call as we trudged through the deepening snow, each of us deep in our own thoughts, trying to keep our worry from each other. The night was so cold, and the darkness suddenly seemed ominous when you considered someone dear to us could be lost and freezing and possibly frightened out there.
Blake suddenly rushed ahead. “Shannan!” he called, and I followed the beam from his flashlight to see what looked like a strange ghostly shape struggling to walk toward us.
