one
Rafe
Pineneedles.Wetgranite.The specific cold that lifts off a BC lake before sunrise, when the mist is still holding against the shore and the sun hasn't decided yet whether to show.
I've been in position for six hours.
The cabin sits in a half-acre clearing a hundred and fifty meters downslope. Log construction. Older than me. The kind my grandfather's generation put up in a weekend with a cousin and a case of beer. One window lit dim, oil lamp not electric. Woodstove chimney putting a thin line of smoke that bends east. That tells me more about the wind than a ribbon would.
The smoke tells me the fire was banked three hours ago. She hasn't been up. She will be soon. Bodies know dawn.
One vehicle in the yard. An older Subaru with Alberta plates. Mud up the fenders. Gas station windshield wash barely scraping through two weeks of highway grime. That plate confirms what the file said.
The outhouse is twenty meters behind the cabin. A worn footpath ground between. Old cedar. Crescent moon on the door, a joke someone made permanent.
That path is where she'll walk.
I adjust my weight against the spruce I've been using as a backrest. My left knee aches, old. My right hand is steady. I haven't eaten since yesterday morning. I won't eat until this is done.
A few minutes after that, the cabin door opens and she steps out.
She's smaller than the photo in the file. Thin. Thinner than thin, the kind you get from not eating. Dark hair cut to her shoulders, roots lighter than the rest. Hoodie that doesn't fit her. Jeans. She pulls the door closed carefully behind her, like she's been doing it for days and has a system.
She walks to the outhouse. Head down. No glance at the treeline. A fugitive running for two weeks should have learned to look by now. She hasn't. That detail files itself.
I move.
I come down the slope quiet. I'm six-four and two-twenty. I have been moving quiet for a long time. It's a skill, not a gift. I've trained it. By the time she comes back out of the outhouse, buttoning her jeans, I am on the path between her and the cabin.
Three meters from her.
Two.
One.
She sees me. She doesn't scream.
"Don't," I say, low. I put my left hand over her mouth. The right one catches her across the collarbones, not hard. "Don't scream. Don't fight. I'm not here to hurt you."
She doesn't fight. Doesn't bite my hand. Doesn't buckle. Doesn't kick for my knee. She goes still under my palm. I can feelher heart beating against my forearm, very fast. The rest of her has stopped. Waiting.
I steer her back up the path. Door. Inside. The cabin smells like woodsmoke, cedar, something warm from last night. A pot of stew on the two-burner.
One chair at the table is a kitchen chair. The other is a stool. I put her on the chair.
I take my hand off her mouth. She doesn't scream now either.
I go to the sink. Cold water. I fill a glass and set it in front of her. She looks at the glass. She looks at me.
"Drink it."
She picks it up with her free hand. Her hand is shaking. She drinks half of it and sets it down carefully, like a person who is trying to appear calm for someone with a badge. Which I am not.
"Hazel Mercier. You know who sent me."
She swallows. Her eyes go to the window, to the floor between my boots, up to my face. "He found me." Her voice is flat. No tears, no bargaining. "Okay. Just do it here, please. Not in front of the lake."
I pause.
