Snowbound

FIFTY-NINE

From the porch, Will and Rachael had an unobstructed view of the entire lake, the floatplane clearly visible at the far end—a piece of red amid all that blinding white.

Will lifted the binoculars to his face as sunlight and frigid air streamed in, adjusting the knobs, bringing the plane into focus.

“Okay, here we go. There are one . . . two, three . . . people standing in a foot of water, unloading the cargo pod, throwing duffel bags up onto the bank. They’re all wearing big white parkas, definitely dressed for the weather.”

“Hunters?” Rachael asked.

“They don’t look like hunters.” He drew in a quick shot of air.

“What?”

Will noted the sudden pressure in his chest, behind his eyes, strength flooding out of his legs as approaching footsteps echoed in the lobby.

“What?”

“I recognize one of them,” he said.

“Who?”

“Oh God.”

“Will? Who?”

He lowered the binoculars and stared at his wife. “Javier Estrada just climbed down out of the pilot’s seat.”

“That man you and Kalyn—”

“Yeah.”

“What’s he doing here?”

“What do you think? We took his family, left them for days in a burned-out mall.”

Devlin walked up, stopped between her parents, said, “So did you find out who they are?”

“Bad men,” Rachael said. “Very bad men.”

Will put his arm around Devlin, kissed the top of her head. “Who is it, Dad?”

“Javier. But we’re gonna be all right, honey,” he said, wondering if the words rang as hollow for Devlin as they felt tumbling out of his mouth. “I need to talk to Mom. Stay here for a minute, okay?” He handed her the binoculars. “Keep an eye on that plane at the end of the lake, and the four men who just climbed out of it.”

“No, Will. No fucking way. Absolutely not.”

Will and Rachael stood in the corridor, twenty feet down from Kalyn’s room.

“Rachael, we can’t do this on our own.”

“She betrayed you. Tried to trade our daughter.”

“I know, but we need her, and we’re running out of time standing here fighting about it.”

Rachael flashed her eyes at the ceiling, her most vehement eye roll.

“Wow, five years since I’ve seen that one,” Will said.

She smiled. “Missed it, huh?”

“I need you to trust me. As bad as Kalyn is and what she did, the man who’s coming here is ten times worse. We’re going to need her.”

“The lesser of the evils. That’s where we’re at?”

“Afraid so.”

Will looked through the peephole, saw Kalyn under the covers, asleep in bed.

“All right.”

Rachael slipped the master key into the lock. It turned, and Will nudged the door open with the barrel of the shotgun.

Kalyn sat up, her face swollen from a night of steady crying.

“We’re in trouble,” Will said.

Kalyn stared back, eyes darkened with shame. “I wanna see my sister. Is she okay?”

“Yes, she’s fine. A plane has landed on the inner lake.” He hesitated, as if by not speaking his name, it might undercut the reality that the man had actually, impossibly, found them, that he was here, less than a mile away. “Javier and three men.”

Kalyn’s face paled, the shame deferring to a crisp alertness, tinged with fear.

“Where are they now? Right out front?”

“No, far end of the lake.”

“And you’re sure it’s him?”

“I took a pair of binoculars from the supply room. There’s no question.”

“Who are the other men?”

“I don’t know. One is Hispanic, maybe another Alpha. Other two are white.”

“Well, we know why they’re here—for what we did to Javier’s family, to him, possibly those men I killed in Fairbanks three days ago.” She threw back the blankets.

“The Alaskan mob?”

“They’re probably cocounsel with the Alphas on this.”

“Aren’t you really the one they—”

“Oh sure. Walk out and explain the situation to them, Will. I dragged you into this. It’s all my fault. I bet they give you a pass, probably even fly you and your family out of here before the shit starts to fly.”