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PROLOGUE
The longer Penny works on building this strange little town, the more obvious it becomes that the company is lying. Lying about everything. They say this tiny community deep in the Alaskan forest is owned by a private firm conducting climate and environmental research that’s both valuable and potentially controversial, given the political divide over climate change.
The owners want to conduct this potentially very lucrative research unhindered, and they were willing to pay a small fortune for the construction crew’s discretion. Every member of the crew had been hand-selected from across North America. They’d signed ironclad NDAs and been provided a “working on an oil rig” cover story for family and friends. All electronic devices had been confiscated at the airport. They’d been flown out in a private plane with darkened windows.
The others didn’t care what the reason was. Research, climatology, environmental engineering, it was all so deathly dull. As far as they were concerned, any company willing to pay a year’s wages for a quarter’s work could insist the crew work wearing clown noses.
While Penny had accepted the story herself, there was a reason she’d grown up in a bedroom filled with cats. It was her mother’s joke—and a not-so-subtle reminder.Curiosity kills the cat, Penny. Be a little less curious, and you’ll live a lot longer.
That was like telling Penny to breathe less air. She thrived on mysteries and puzzles, especially when it came to houses. Yes, most people don’t think of “houses” as puzzles, but that’s because they aren’t architects. A new client comes to you, eyes glittering with the dream of their perfect home, and you need to make it a reality, even when everyone has told them that their vision won’t work. Penny’s specialty is making it work.
That’s why she’s here—to take this company’s dream and make it a reality. They wanted to minimize their town’s footprint while maximizing both function and comfort. The last part sold her. This wasn’t a firm trying to stuff worker bees into the smallest hive possible. While they did need to be small—to keep others from investigating—they didn’t want to sacrifice livability. That made them good people, right? At least decent as far as corporations went.
The budget ignited the first whisper of doubt. Not that they were asking her to cut corners. She expected that, and she expected to discover that their insistence on “maximum livability” was mostly advertising for the scientists and technicians who’d live here. No, the problem was that theydidn’tamend her plans, even when she warned it’d take the project over budget.
She’d run a test asking for something ridiculous. If they’d agreed, that would mean they were fleecing investors with a fake project, which would be disappointing but none of her business. Instead, they balked at the overage and asked her to scale it back.
Something was going on, and after nearly twenty years in the business, she thought she knew all the scams and tricks, andshe couldn’t figure this one out, which had her cat whiskers tingling.
She’d started sneaking into places she shouldn’t be. Listening to conversations she wasn’t supposed to hear. And all she caught were tidbits that made her more suspicious without answering any of her questions. For a curious kitty, that was catnip.
Penny had just finished eavesdropping on a conversation when the participants stormed off. That happened a lot between these two: Bruno, the engineer, and Yolanda, the contractor. Yolanda was trying to keep things on schedule, while Bruno kept finding issues that needed to be addressed. Tonight’s argument had been different.
When it broke up with both participants storming off, Penny was left musing in her hiding spot, idly watching Yolanda stalk across the jobsite. Now Yolanda stops, peers into the gathering dark, and then slips into the forest.
That gets Penny’s attention. They aren’t allowed into the forest. That’s been madeveryclear. It’s dangerous and untamed Alaskan wilderness, filled with grizzlies and wolves and killers. Okay, no one said “killers” but they all know Alaska is where serial killers run when they need to escape the police.
The person who enforces the “no forest” rule, with strict penalties? The same person who is going in there now.
Penny jogs to a building on the edge of town, ducks into the shadow of it, and peers around the corner. When Yolanda turns again to peer back, Penny’s heart stops, but after a slow and careful look around, Yolanda disappears into the forest.
Penny counts to five and then takes off in pursuit. She tracks the whisper of branches brushing Yolanda’s nylon jacket, the crack of a twig under her work boots, the sudden explosion of a startled bird taking flight. Penny has never been what anyone would call outdoorsy—she once rolled in poison ivy to get senthome from summer camp—but she’s pleased with herself here, picking up those sounds and tracking Yolanda without getting close enough to be caught.
Admittedly, Yolanda is on a path—one hacked out for the approved “group walks”—so it’s easy enough to follow her. And it’s also easy for Penny to keep on that path and let her mind wander and fail to realize that the sounds up ahead stopped a while ago.
When Penny finally does notice it, she stops to listen… and realizes just how silent it is out here. Not just silent either. It’s dark.
She peers around the gloom and shadows. It’d been dusk when she set out. Yes, noticing that, she’d realized she should have grabbed a flashlight, but her eyes had adjusted easily enough, and it wasn’t as if it was fully dark.
Now it is fully dark.
How is that possible? She left the town just a few moments ago, right? Well, no, it’s been more than a few moments. Once she’d realized Yolanda was following a path, she’d focused on piecing together the bits and pieces she’d accumulated in her quest to solve the town’s mystery.
So how long has she been gone?
And when did she stop hearing Yolanda?
It is at that moment that Penny realizes her mother was right. Curiosity is dangerous, and not just when it leads her to listen in on a private conversation. It’s even more dangerous when it leads her into the goddamn Alaskan wilderness, at night, with no flashlight and no weapon sharper than the mechanical pencil in her back pocket.
She takes a deep breath. There’s moonlight, and she can see the path well enough. She just needs to follow it back to town.
She gets about five paces before the moon disappears behindcloud cover. Penny blinks to clear her vision and continues walking, feeling her way, trees close enough to touch on either side, pressing on—
Her foot sinks in snow, and she pulls back. There were no snowy patches along the path. She’d have noticed that. Thereisstill snow here and there, in dark crevices, but she definitely hadn’t stepped in any. Therefore, she is no longer on the path.
She bends and squints at the ground, only to see a half dozen large canine prints in the patch of snow.
Wolves.
