After Brie and her team had loaded everything into the delivery van, she was ready to head out. The delivery van started reluctantly in the chilly morning air, its engine turning over twice before catching.
Brie started the familiar route to Fate Mountain Lodge, down Main Street then onto Highway 97. The mountain road curved through dense stands of ponderosa pine and Douglas fir, their massive trunks disappearing into shadows between patches of early morning sunlight. November frost clung to the ferns and Oregon grape that carpeted the forest floor, turning the understory into a glittering maze of ice crystals.
She was twenty minutes into the drive when the first orange construction sign appeared. “Road Work Ahead - Right Lane Closed.” And then. “Highway 97 North Closed - Use Alternate Route.”
Brie stopped where a flagman in a bright vest was directing traffic. She rolled down her window as she stopped, catching the scents of diesel fuel and hot asphalt in the morning air.
“How long is the closure?” she called out.
“All morning, ma’am. Paving crew’s got the whole northbound side torn up. You’ll want to take the detour through theindustrial district.” He pointed toward a yellow sign with an arrow. “Follow the signs for Alternate Route B. It’ll get you back to 97 about ten miles up the mountain.”
Brie thanked him and pulled back onto the road, following the detour signs that led away from the familiar highway and into a part of the county she rarely visited. The industrial district was all warehouses and manufacturing facilities, built in a valley where land was cheaper and the views didn’t matter.
Her GPS began recalculating, the arrival time for the lodge jumping from seven AM to seven-twenty. Still manageable, but it would be close.
The detour route was clearly marked at first. There were bright yellow signs directing traffic through a series of turns that took her past a lumber mill, a food processing plant, and several nondescript warehouses.
As she continued north, Brie realized she’d lost the official detour somewhere. She pulled over and studied her phone’s map, trying to figure out the best way to rejoin Highway 97 higher up the mountain. The GPS suggested a series of smaller roads.
“Recalculating route,” the pleasant voice announced. “In 200 feet, turn right on Industrial Parkway.”
Brie followed the directions, turning onto a road where the warehouses sprawled further apart, separated by empty lots choked with brown weeds and patches of scrubland that November had stripped bare. Skeletal cottonwood trees lined the cracked asphalt, their branches reaching like crooked fingers into the gray sky.
The morning shadows stretched between the industrial buildings, creating dark corridors where frost still clung to chain-link fences and abandoned loading docks. After a few minutes, she realized she hadn’t seen another vehicle since she’d started down this route.
“In half a mile, turn left on Riverside Drive,” the GPS instructed.
When she reached the intersection, there was no street sign. Just a narrow road leading toward what looked like a cluster of older warehouses near a bend in the river. Her bear stirred uneasily. The buildings here looked even older, more weathered, with boarded windows and rust stains bleeding down their sides.
Brie hesitated. The GPS insisted this was the correct route, and she was now running behind schedule. Taking a deep breath and steeling herself, she followed the directions, driving carefully over the rougher road surface to avoid jarring her precious cargo.
“In 300 feet, your destination will be on the right.”
That couldn’t be right. She wasn’t anywhere near Fate Mountain Lodge.
Brie pulled over on the gravel shoulder and picked up her phone. The screen showed a spinning wheel where the GPS directions should be, then flashed an error message: “No network connection available.”
She tried refreshing the app, then switching to a different navigation program. Nothing worked. She was alone in an unfamiliar area with no GPS and a van full of perishable goods that needed to arrive at the lodge in ten minutes.
Chapter
Two
Hunter Cruz had been watchingthe house for three days, and his body was starting to file formal complaints.
He shifted in the driver’s seat of his black Dodge Ram, rolling shoulders that had gone stiff somewhere around hour ten. His fingers flexed against the cold steering wheel, trying to restore circulation that the November chill had been steadily stealing since he’d shut off the engine at 0200. The dashboard clock glowed 0545 in the pre-dawn darkness.
Fifteen hours. In his Special Forces days, he’d pulled longer surveillance ops in much worse conditions. 120-degree heat in Fallujah, monsoon rains in the Philippines, a three-day stint in a Colombian jungle where the mosquitoes had been the size of small birds. But he’d been younger then, his wolf metabolism burning hotter, his recovery time faster.
Now, at forty-five, his body reminded him that even shifter healing had limits.
The house remained dark, aluminum foil pressed against every window to block both light and prying eyes. Dr.Thomas Brennan was smart enough to know that thermal imaging could track heat signatures through glass, and he was paranoid enough to take countermeasures. Three years ago, the man had been publishing groundbreaking research in chemical engineering at Bright Institute. Now he was suspected of cooking meth for the Sinaloa cartel’s Pacific Northwest operation.
Brennan had been on Steel Protection’s bounty list for three months now, ever since he’d skipped out on a court date for possession of precursor chemicals. The bail bondsman was offering good money, but Hunter would have tracked him for free just to get another meth cook off the streets.
Hunter lifted his binoculars, scanning the property through the growing gray light. Dead lawn, frost-covered and brown. Garbage bins that hadn’t been moved to the curb in weeks. All the hallmarks of someone who’d stopped caring about keeping up appearances, focused only on the chemistry happening in whatever makeshift lab he’d built inside.
The first kitchen light flickered on three houses down. 0547. Mrs. Mathers, right on schedule. After three days of surveillance on Brennan, Hunter had cataloged the entire street’s morning patterns. Mr. Gupta would leave for his hospital shifts at 0615. The school bus would rumble through at 0645, picking up the Robertson kids.
