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What if it’s inhabited?
What if it’s falling apart?
And worse yet–
What if he finds you?
Steadfastly, she pushed those worrisome questions aside. She had a plan, albeit a flimsy, hastily created one, but as long as she kept to it—
“Is Daddy coming up here?”
Ian.
Oh. God.
She stumbled.
Caught herself.
Ignored the stab of pain cutting through her heart.
Kept moving. “No, honey,” she said as they crested the top of a steep rise and the fir trees gave way to a clearing with a rambling, dilapidated cabin, the original structure having been added onto over the years, or so it appeared. “Not this time.”
“But I was supposed to be with him at Christmas,” Renee pointed out.
“I know. Change of plans.”
She felt her daughter’s suspicious glare cutting into her back. “That sucks.”
“I know.”
“What the—?” Her daughter’s voice was filled with wonder as she gazed at the large cabin. Or was it dread? “We’re—we’re going to live here?” Renee asked incredulously, flinging herself from the heap of supplies and dashing forward.
“That’s the plan.”
Renee’s eyes lit up. “Cool.”
Lucy doubted she’d think it was so cool when she found out there was no internet, hence no Wi-Fi for her daughter’s iPad. “Yeah,” she lied, hiking the rope to the sled higher on her shoulder, “very cool.”
But not bucolic, nor quaint, nor the least bit cozy. The center of the cabin, which looked the oldest, the original building, Lucy guessed, rose like a behemoth, two tall stories with a narrow porch over the front door, and from the center structure sprang wings that were mismatched, as if they’d been built in different decades, judging by the windows and graying siding. No paint had ever touched the weathered exterior, but the thick covering of snow softened some of the sharp angles.
“Kinda weird,” Renee observed.
Very weird. But Lucy didn’t say it. Instead, she patted her daughter’s head and said, “I’d call it unique.”
You wanted remote, a place to hide where no one can find you, didn’t you? Looks like you got it.
Now, if she could just find the key.
San Francisco, California
Now
“Lucy, damn it. Pick up!” Ian muttered tautly. He was walking down the steep streets of San Francisco, cell phone pressed to his ear, the rain pelting, the wind fierce, his rage shooting through the stratosphere. He dodged other pedestrians, their umbrellas turned to the wind, and stepped around a woman balancing a take-out cup of coffee, her phone, and a poodle on a tight leash. But the phone went to voice mail and he knew his wife wouldn’t return his call. He jabbed the cell into his pocket and, thoughts churning, walked the five blocks to his office.
He waved at the receptionist, then rapped twice on his partner’s door, stepped inside, and found Zhou in her zenlike office with its view of the Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. “I’m taking some time off.”
“What’re you talking about?” Jun Zhou was in her midforties and as fit as she had been when she’d left the military after putting in her twenty years with army intelligence. Her black hair was pulled into a tight bun, her dark eyes assessing as she sat at a circular desk complete with three computers, several cacti in ceramic pots, and not a paper out of place. A yoga mat was rolled into one corner, and aside from calming views of the ocean, a wall contained copies of her law degree and a display of the medals she’d been awarded during her military career.
