Page 32 of Torin

I nod as something tightens in my chest.

Then he’s gone.

I listen to his footsteps cross the porch and the truck start outside. By the time the sound disappears down the mountain, I’m still standing in the kitchen.

I don’t have to handle this by myself.

I’m not sure anyone has ever said this to me before.

6

Hannah

For a few moments, I stay right where I am. The old refrigerator hums in the kitchen. Somewhere outside, an insect drones lazily in the heat. Leaves whisper against one another.

Eventually, I lock the door and lean my forehead against the wood.

Torin’s gone.

Which is fine.

I wonder how long it’ll take him to deal with the truck.

I push away from the door.

The cabin is already warming up. Sunlight pours through the windows, turning the wooden floorboards honey-gold.

I cross to the nearest window and wrestle it open.

Hot air rolls inside. Not exactly the refreshing mountain breeze I was hoping for.

I open another anyway, then another. By the time I’ve worked my way around the cabin, a faint current of air is moving through at last, carrying the scent of pine and sunbaked earth. Better.

I wander back into the kitchen. Torin’s mug is still sitting beside the sink. I stare at it for a second, then pick it up. The plate goes into the dishwasher. The mug follows. I wipe down the counter. When the kitchen is spotless, I run out of excuses.

I collect the folder from my backpack and set it on the dining table.

Months of work. Stolen moments in Dad’s office, locked doors and screenshots taken when nobody was looking.

My father would have a heart attack if he could see it sitting here.

I smile at the thought and pull out my laptop.

While it boots, I open the folder and flip through the photographs, incident reports and witness statements. Missing women. Dead women. Women who supposedly wandered into bear territory alone.

I know every face by now.

The first photograph shows a smiling brunette standing beside a canoe. Twenty-three years old. Missing for four years.

According to the official report, she ignored warnings and hiked into bear territory alone.

Except she’d texted a friend an hour before she disappeared. She was going to meet someone.

The friend’s statement never made it into the final file.

I turn the page and find another woman, another death, another file with pieces missing.

My father always said there was nothing suspicious about any of it. A freak accident here, an animal attack there. Women who happened to disappear in the wrong place at the wrong time.