Bree’s chest was tight with a mixture of hope and disbelief as they neared town. Her goal was so close. Naomi turned off on Summit and stopped in front of the school. Kade helped Emily and Timmy out of the Jeep and walked them through the school doors. The preschool teacher took charge of Timmy, and Emily went on to her class. When Kade returned, they drove down Houghton Street, intent on getting to the forest. As they passed the bank, a figure stepped into the snow-covered street to flag them down. Steve’s face was red with the cold, but he wore an excited grin. He waved Fay’s diary in his hand. Naomi stopped, the Jeep’s back end fishtailing a bit. Steve ran to Bree’s door, and she lowered her window.
“You won’t believe it!” he panted. He flipped open the diary. “Look.” He pushed the open diary under Bree’s nose.
Impatient with the delay, she glanced at the words: The assayer says there’s gold in the mine. Gold. I can hardly believe it. Does he know? This changes everything. “Who’s ‘he’?” Bree asked.
“I don’t know. But this has to have something to do with her death. We need to talk. Where are you headed?” Steve asked.
“We might have a lead to my family,” Bree said. She didn’t want to take the time to explain it.
Steve’s eyes widened. “I’ll come with you. We’ll talk on the way.” He didn’t wait for an answer but got in the backseat with Kade.
“I carry an extra pair of snowshoes; you can use those,” Bree said. “But you’re going to get cold in those pants.” Steve was dressed for the office, not for hiking through heavy snow. The temperature today hovered near zero, and a cold wind blew out of the north. Steve didn’t seem to care.
Naomi drove out along the access road to Lake Superior. The waves tossed foam onto the beach, and the wind whistled through the Jeep’s grille.
“I’m having a hard time staying on the road,” she muttered. Her knuckles were white as she fought with the wheel.
“Want me to take over?” Kade asked.
Naomi nodded and pulled over, then she and Kade exchanged places. The delay made Bree want to scream with frustration. Half an hour later they stopped at the track where Kade had seen the woman.
“This is it,” Kade said. “There’s too much snow to risk taking the Jeep in. We’ll have to go on foot.”
Bree let the dogs out. Then she pulled out Pooky, the hat, and the paper bag with Davy’s shirt she’d been using as a scent article. She pushed back her hair impatiently as the wind teased it from under her parka hood and blew the curls into her eyes. She knelt beside her dog.
Samson whined as though to ask what was wrong. She put her arms around him. “I’m depending on you, boy. I can’t do this alone. Please, please, find them.” Samson whined and licked her face. Tears leaked from her eyes and soaked the fur at his neck. Holding the stuffed bear and the hat under his nose, she let Samson sniff them. Then she had him sniff Davy’s scent article. His tail began to wag when he smelled Davy’s scent.
“Find Davy, Samson.” Bree let go of Samson and started after him with her heart in her throat as he bounded away. “Please, God, let it be Davy,” she whispered. The cold wind stung her face, but she barely noticed. Intent on keeping up with Samson, she plodded over the snow-covered ground in her snowshoes, not caring whether the rest of the team was managing to keep up. The dogs seemed to know right where they were going. Samson bounded over and through snowdrifts with his nose high in the air. His tail waved grandly, and exhilaration seemed to pour off him in waves.
Bree had never seen Samson so excited. But no, she was setting herself up for a crushing disappointment. At the end of this search, all she was likely to find were dead bodies, not her Davy alive and well. Naomi was probably right: The woman had found the wreckage and had taken Davy’s things home to her own child.
But wasn’t the wreckage exactly what she’d spent the past year looking for—her husband’s and son’s dead bodies? With that goal finally in sight, it seemed a poor trophy. Their souls were what mattered. And for the first time in her life, she was at peace knowing they really weren’t out there under this thick blanket of snow. Heaven was where they were residing. And as she’d told Anu, she would see them again.
They came to an old road that crisscrossed through the forest, and Bree paused to rest. Steve panted beside her as he hurried to keep up. “This borders Asters land,” he gasped, out of breath. His dress slacks were wet with snow. “Another old mine is down that way. That one was abandoned back in the eighteen hundreds and has never been the producer the Copper Queen was.”
Kade sat on a stump poking up through the snow and pushed his hat back from his forehead. “I think they’ve lost the scent.”
The dogs nosed around the clearing for several minutes, but it was clear Kade was right. The rising frustration in Bree’s heart brought tears to her eyes. They’d been so close.
“Did you see anything else in the diary?” she asked Steve. She’d only briefly skimmed it, but Fay’s handwriting was hard to read. It was the only lead they had.
“Truthfully, I just started looking at it this morning. I was almost afraid of what Fay might say about the baby.” Steve pulled it out of his jacket. He brushed the snow from a downed tree then settled down on it. Bree pulled out a handful of pistachios. Kade took a few, but Steve, and of course Naomi, refused them. Bree sat beside Steve as he flipped through the pages, skimming quickly. He was used to Fay’s poor penmanship and seemed to have no trouble reading it.
About five pages from the end, Steve made a sound. Bree leaned over to see.
Steve read it aloud. “‘The most peculiar thing happened today. I was hiking in the woods and ran across a cabin near Big White Rock. I knocked on the door, and a woman I’d met earlier came to the door. I hadn’t realized there were any cabins in that area. She seemed scared when I showed up and asked for a glass of water. It might be my imagination, but I thought that old seat in the ravine beside the cabin looked like an airplane seat. I think I might investigate a little more and find out who she is.” Bree jumped to her feet. “Big White Rock. You know where that is? It doesn’t ring a bell with me.”
“I know it!” Naomi put in excitedly. “We’re in the wrong spot. It would be quicker to drive to Lake Richmond and go from there. Come on!”
“I know it too,” Steve said. “It’s near some of my land.”
They raced back to the car. Since she knew where they were going, Naomi drove. They headed along snow-covered dirt and gravel roads to Lake Richmond, a small haven for loons deep in the North Woods. Naomi drove the narrow road until it petered out near a stand of jack pine.
“Big White Rock is about two miles west of here,” she said.
“Fay didn’t say which direction from the rock,” Bree said.
“The dogs will know,” Kade said. He opened the back hatch and let the dogs out, and they all put on their gear again.
Bree had the dogs sniff the items again, and within seconds Samson had the scent. He raced off with his tail held high. Her heart surged, and she hurried after him, the sound of her snowshoes whoosh-whooshing in the cold air. Samson ran as though he knew right where to go. He kept pausing and looking back impatiently as if to ask why she couldn’t keep up.
All Bree could do was focus on putting one foot in front of the other. Over wind-swept hills and valleys filled with snowdrifts, they followed the dogs. The minutes ticked by as the sun rose higher in the sky.
They finally reached a creek bed and crossed it, their boots crunching through the top layer of ice to the cold water trickling beneath it. Chilled through and through, Bree willed herself to the crest of the hill on the far side.
Below them in a clearing sat a small log cabin.
“That’s got to be it!” Steve shouted.
Excitement ran through Bree like an electric current, and she saw the same thrill on her friends’ faces. Bree ran full tilt down the hill to the front door of the cabin. She knocked on the door. “Hello!”
When no one answered, she cautiously pushed the door open and peered inside. Her stomach twisted when she saw the single empty room inside. She saw a box of old clothes beside the door. Samson raced past her and grabbed a toy fire engine in his mouth. His tail beat a furious dance in the air as he licked the toy and whined.
A child had been here, but was it her child? Bree could only watch Samson’s reaction and thrill to the possibility. “Where is he, Samson? Search!”
The dog barked then dashed from the room. He dropped the fire engine as he ran toward the backyard and vanished into the woods.
“Wait for me!” Bree ran after him, plunging into the deep shadows of the forest.
Bree could sense Samson’s excitement, and it fueled her own. They had to be very close. Kade, Steve, and Naomi thrashed through the brush behind her, but she didn’t wait on them. She could conceive of nothing beyond this moment of pushing past brambles, struggling over rough terrain on her snowshoes, and keeping her gaze on her dog. Samson paused at the top of a hill and began to bark excitedly. He disappeared, and Bree struggled on to the top of the slope.
Below her in a clearing sat a woman on a log. Beside her was a small figure. The woman rose and put her hands out as if to ward off the dog’s attack, but Samson paid no attention to her. He ran straight to the small figure. Even from here, Bree could see the little boy’s fearlessness. He jumped up and ran toward the dog.
“Sam!” the woman cried.
“Sam!” the little boy shouted. He threw his arms around Samson’s neck, and the dog licked his face in a frenzied display of joy.
Bree knew her legs were moving, but the scene seemed to freeze as a still life, the air around her a vacuum. Laboring against the atmosphere that kept her from the child, she pushed on, and finally the little boy’s face grew closer. He was laughing, and she’d seen that dimpled grin thousands of times. Her gaze traced the contours of his cheeks, his pointed chin, the wide forehead so like her own.
The hair beneath the knit cap was darker than Davy’s, but nothing could hide the fact that her son stood before her, alive and well. He looked up, and his green eyes widened. His arms fell away from Samson’s neck, and the dog stood still as if he sensed this was Bree’s turn.
Bree had almost reached him. “Davy?” she whispered. She wanted to touch him, but what if he disappeared as he always did in her dreams? His face blurred as tears stung her eyes.
“Mommy?” he asked.
The strength drained from her legs and she collapsed to her knees in front of him, her fall cushioned by the snow. His small fingers touched her face with a tentative touch as though he was as unsure of her as she was of him. Bree folded him in an embrace, and he snuggled against her as if there was no place he’d rather be. “Davy, Davy,” was all she could say. His hair smelled of wood smoke and little boy. She buried her face in his neck and breathed in the scent of him, an aroma better than any pulla or panukakkua.
He wrapped his arms around her and burrowed closer. If it was a dream, she wanted never to awaken. He felt whole, but was he really all right? She ran her hands over his back and legs as he clung to her and refused to let go. He didn’t wince at her probing fingers but sighed in contentment to be in her care.
Davy finally pulled away. He cupped her face in both his hands, a mannerism she’d almost forgotten. “Where were you, Mommy? I couldn’t find you.”
“I’ve been looking and looking for you, sweetheart. Samson and I have never stopped looking for you.” Bree was sobbing so hard she could barely get the words out. She’d almost given up, she realized with a sense of shame. How good God was that he had brought this incredible blessing to her.
“I knew you’d find me,” he said. “You and Sam.” He reached out and caressed the dog. Samson wiggled all over with pleasure and pushed his nose between Davy and Bree. Bree threw an arm around the dog and drew him into the circle. Her family. The three of them.
Kade, Steve, and Naomi reached them. Naomi was sobbing and clinging to Kade’s arm for support. Steve stumbled along with a dazed look on his face.
There were tears in Kade’s eyes as well, and Bree’s heart was touched by his compassion and empathy.
“This must be Davy,” he said.
Bree was so full of emotion, she could barely whisper, “Davy, this is Kade Matthews. He’s been helping me look for you. Naomi and Steve too.”
Naomi knelt in front of them and held out her arms. “Remember Aunt Naomi?”
Davy nodded and limped over for a hug. His forehead wrinkled as he thought. “Where’s Charley?” He released her then went back to Bree’s arms.
“He’s out looking for you. His nose isn’t quite as good as Samson’s,” Naomi said.
There was a bark from the top of the hill, then a reddish shape came streaking toward them, and soon Charley was all over Davy in a dance of joy.
Gradually, Bree became aware of the woman standing at the edge of the group. Her arms hung slackly at her sides, and her face was a mask of misery. Bree stood with Davy in her arms. She faced the woman and wondered what she could say. At least the woman had kept him alive. But why hadn’t she brought him to town and reunited him with his family the minute he was found?
“Who’s your friend, Davy?”
Her son’s small face grew solemn. “Her name is Mother. She takes care of me,” he said.
From his short explanation, Bree gleaned a wealth of information. No one else had ever taken her place with Davy. He had never accepted this woman in Bree’s place. Her heart was too full to speak. She tried, but nothing came out.
Swallowing, she tried again. “Who are you?” she whispered.
The woman raised pale blue eyes shadowed with sorrow. “Rachel Marks, ma’am.”
“I want to know everything,” Bree said. “How you found him and why you kept him and where the plane is.”
Rachel nodded. “I know.”
“Let’s take you home, little guy,” Kade said.
The woman’s gaze darted left then right as though she might bolt, then she slowly reached out a hand and grasped Bree’s. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I loved him so much, you see.” Tears slid down her windburned cheeks. She dropped Bree’s hand and followed them up the hill.
Bree carried Davy slowly while the rest of the group hurried ahead. This was her time with him. She would remember the feel of his small arms clinging to her neck forever. His breath warmed her cheek as she recited everyone who would be glad to see him. “Grammy Anu, Aunt Hilary, Uncle Mason—they’ve all missed you so much. And remember the twins, Paige and Penelope? You won’t believe how much they’ve grown.”
Davy made a little sound of contentment. “Is Daddy coming too?”
Bree caught her breath. She wondered how much he remembered of that terrible day of the crash. “You and Daddy went fishing,” she said. “Wasn’t it fun for just you and Daddy to go fishing—just the boys?”
“I didn’t like it when Daddy yelled.”
“Daddy yelled?” Bree asked. Rob had been a loving and caring father. He’d rarely raised his voice to Davy. “Why did he yell at you?”
Davy stiffened, and his voice came out offended. “No, Mommy! At Uncle Palmer.”
Confusion made her pause to catch her breath. “Uncle Palmer went fishing with you?”
“I guess so.” Then he shook his head. “No, I ’member. He came to visit us at the lake.”
“Why would Daddy yell at Uncle Palmer? We don’t yell at friends, remember?”
“I know. But Daddy didn’t want Uncle Palmer to do some things. Like hurt people. We don’t hurt people.”
“Who did Uncle Palmer want to hurt?” Bree was growing more confused. Palmer had never mentioned he’d seen Rob and Davy. In fact, he’d mourned the fact he hadn’t been able to check Rob’s plane before the crash.
“I guess Daddy, ’cause he hit him.”
“Uncle Palmer hit Daddy? Where?”
“In the nose. There was blood, and I cried.” He said the words matter-of-factly.
“Do you know why he hit Daddy?”
“I don’t know,” Davy whispered. “But Uncle Palmer found gold.”
Gold. The only place he could have found gold would have been at Fay’s mine. And Fay was dead. And so was Rob. In her diary Fay had written that she wondered if “he” knew. Could the “he” she referred to be Palmer? Bree’s mouth was dry with an unnamed dread. Palmer wouldn’t hurt anyone. Would he?
Another thought slipped through her mind like a Windigo wraith. Palmer worked on airplanes in the military. Bree didn’t want to entertain such a thought, but the suspicions were multiplying.
Davy put his palms against her cheeks and pulled her face in front of his. “Don’t look scared, Mommy. We got away from Uncle Palmer.”
Bree didn’t know what he meant, but she decided not to ask him any more questions now. She didn’t want him to see her agitation, and he’d been through enough. There would be time to sort it all out later.
“Put your head against my shoulder and take a nap,” she told him. “Everything is fine, sweetheart. You’re with Mommy now, and we’re going to be okay.” But even as her son’s breathing deepened and his weight sagged in her arms, her thoughts tumbled over one another like rabbits running from hunters. She couldn’t believe it, could she? There had to be some other explanation.
“The plane is just over there.” Rachel’s soft voice startled her so near to her right side.
Bree looked to where Rachel pointed. A deep ravine ran along here. Bree swallowed hard. Rob’s body lay there under a blanket of snow.
Naomi came up beside her. “Let me take Davy,” she said softly. “Go on. This is what you’ve been searching for.”
In a daze, Bree carefully handed her sleeping son to Naomi. Steve and Kade flanked her as Rachel led the way to the ravine.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I didn’t want the animals to get the man, er, your husband, so I buried him.”
Relief flooded her. “Thank you,” Bree whispered. She stood on the edge of the ravine and looked down at the plane. The Bonanza Beechcraft was level with the top of the ravine, and the wind had swept it clear of snow. One wing was shattered and bent, the windshield was missing, and most of the top appeared to have been sheared off.
Bree closed her eyes. She’d searched eleven months for this moment. The crushed plane was mute evidence of the horror Davy had gone through, of Rob’s last moments on this earth. Why had it gone down? He and Palmer had kept it in perfect shape. Palmer. Could Palmer have actually hurt Rob? She was afraid to think it through.
She’d come this far. Opening her eyes, she gripped Kade’s hand, thankful for his steadiness and concern, then she slid down the ravine to the plane. Steve followed while Rachel turned away and rejoined Naomi and Davy. Bree fumbled at the door, but it refused to open. Kade wrenched it open for her. Though it was hard, she needed to do this—see if there was anything in the plane’s cabin that might reveal the truth about what had happened.
She’d expected bloodstains, but the brown seats and effects of the weather hid most traces. Many of the gauges were shattered. Davy’s blanket was in the back. It had brown stains on it, which probably accounted for Rachel’s decision to leave it behind.
“What are we looking for?” Steve’s face was pinched with cold.
“Davy said something strange. He told me Palmer fought with Rob, that he’d found gold,and was planning to hurt someone.”
Steve took half a step back. “Are you saying you think Palmer might have killed Fay?”
All Bree’s doubts coalesced into deep suspicion. “More than that. I think he might have had something to do with the crash. He’s an airplane mechanic. He never told me he stopped to see Rob and Davy at the fishing cabin. All he’s ever said is how much he regretted being gone so he couldn’t check out the plane for Rob. He blamed himself. What if he really is guilty?”
They all fell silent. Bree’s gaze met Kade’s, and she saw the anguish in his eyes, pain for her. It gave her strength to know his soul was so tuned to hers.
“I’ll help you,” he said. “Any idea where to begin?” He entered the plane and stooped to look around.
“No. We need to see if we can figure out what caused it to crash.” It seemed a hopeless task amid the jumble of debris. “Not that I know a thing about the mechanics of this plane.”
Kade knelt and began to go through the rubble. Rob’s tool chest lay upended against the rear seats. Tools were scattered beside it. At a loss, Bree knelt and began to pick up the tools with her gloved hand and put them back in the toolbox.
She remembered when Rob had bought these tools. He’d bought a complete set of Stanley screwdrivers because he liked the black-and-white handles. Seeing them here on the floor of the crashed plane pained her. Maybe Davy would like to have them someday.
“Hey, come out here!” Steve called.
Bree scrambled over the wreckage, and Kade followed her. They found Steve crouched under a wing.
“Look.”
The jumble of wires he showed them meant nothing to Bree. “What’s wrong?”
“Someone has shorted out this fuel transmitter. See this wire? It’s been jumpered across the contacts.”
“What does that mean?” Bree asked.
Steve sighed. “It would make the gauge read full when it wasn’t.”
Bree leaned in closer to look and saw something glint back inside the wing. She reached in and touched it. A screwdriver. She pulled it out. It was red, blue, and clear, not white and black.
“Something wrong?” Kade asked.
“This isn’t Rob’s. He always bought Stanley. This is a Craftsman.” She turned it over and caught her breath.
“What is it?” Kade moved closer.
She held it out. The letters PLC were engraved on the handle. “Palmer’s initials. He always marks his tools like this.”
“Maybe Rob borrowed it,” Kade said.
“Palmer never loans his tools.”
The silence was almost palpable. “I like Palmer,” Steve said. “I always have. Why would he kill Rob? Fay I can understand, if she found out about the gold and wasn’t going to go through with the sale. The diary makes it sound like she’d hired an assayer to look at things.”
“That might be why she wouldn’t let me join her the morning she died,” Bree said. “I assumed she was meeting—” She broke off with an apologetic look at Steve.
“You assumed she was meeting Eric,” he finished. “It’s okay.”
“So Palmer must have met her at the mine,” Bree continued, “killed her there, and taken her to the cliff to make it look like an accident.”
“Maybe,” Steve said. “But how do we prove it?”
“We need to get Mason out here for fingerprints,” Kade said. “The National Transportation Safety Board too, to investigate the cause.”
“Are you guys about done?” Naomi spoke from the top of the embankment. “I’m freezing, and Davy has grown since the last time I lugged him around.”
The discovery of Palmer’s screwdriver had left Bree shell-shocked. This couldn’t be happening. An incident about tools tickled the edge of her memory, but she couldn’t seem to grasp it, no matter how hard she tried. It did no good to try to force it.
“We’re coming,” Bree finally called back.
A few minutes later, they gained the shelter of the cabin. They shucked their snowshoes at the door, then Naomi went to the stove and began to build a fire while Kade went out to split more wood.
Davy opened his eyes when Bree laid him on a cot. She took his coat off and ran her hands over his arms and legs. He winced when she touched his arms. Frowning, she eased him out of his shirt. There were red marks on his arms that looked like burns. She bit her lip. He needed to be seen by a doctor. Continuing her examination, she noticed his leg was still a bit crooked, obviously from a break. But at least he was alive.
He lay quietly under her gentle touch, his eyes drooping as he became warmer. She started to stand.
“Don’t go, Mommy,” he murmured.
Leaning down to kiss him, Bree caressed his hair. “I’ll never leave you,” she whispered against his ear. He gave a contented sigh and closed his eyes again. She kissed his forehead and backed away.
Kade came in with an armload of wood. He dropped it by the stove then went to Bree. He touched her shoulder and whispered, “Steve and I have been talking. My cell phone is dead. I’m not sure if the battery needs to be charged or if the service is down, so we can’t call for help. Why don’t we go for a couple of snowmobiles? It would be easier on Davy if he didn’t have to walk, and it’s a long way for you to carry him. I’d be glad to carry him, but he doesn’t know me. A snowmobile would have you all out of here in no time.”
“That’s a great idea,” Bree said. “Rachel seems harmless. Naomi and I will find out what we can from her while you’re gone.”
Kade nodded. “I feel sorry for her. She obviously loved Davy very much.” He paused to regroup his thoughts. “We’ll be back in an hour or so. There’s plenty of wood for the fire.” He put his palm against her cheek and smiled down into her eyes. “God gave us an incredible miracle, didn’t he?”
The touch of his hand added to the crazy sensations swirling inside her. “I can’t believe it’s real and not a dream.”
“Believe it. You’ve got a little boy to take care of again.”
Steve closed the door to the stove and joined them. “Louis Farmer has snowmobiles, and he’s only five miles away. We’ll get to the Jeep and be back in no time.”
Bree nodded. “Just hurry. I can’t wait to see Anu’s and Hilary’s faces.”
Kade let the dogs out, then he and Steve left. Naomi followed them out to make sure the dogs didn’t trail after them.
Bree’s gaze found Rachel standing awkwardly in the corner as if she wanted to escape notice. “Have a seat, Rachel.”
Rachel regarded her silently before going to the rocker by the window. She looked out anxiously before easing down into the seat. They sat in silence for a long time.
“Tell me how you found Davy,” Bree finally began. “Why didn’t you bring him to town to find me?” She struggled to keep the anger from her voice. “Didn’t you realize he had a family who mourned him? I thought he was dead.”
Tears overflowed as Rachel squeezed her eyes shut. “I—I didn’t mean to do anybody any harm. I moved out here to have some peace and quiet.” She gulped. “M—my picture had been in the papers for weeks, and I was tired of it. Everyone thought I was responsible when some of my patients died in the nursing home where I worked, and even after the jury said I was innocent, reporters camped outside my house and called at all hours. Everyone saw the accusations, but no one seemed to care when the truth came out.” She pressed her lips together.
“What about Davy?”
Her lips trembled. “When the plane went down near my cabin, I rushed to see if I could help. The man was dead, but the little boy was still alive. He kept muttering, ‘Sam, Sam.’ So I just started calling him that.” She looked out the window again.
“He’s always called our dog Sam,” Bree murmured.
Rachel nodded. “Anyway, he was real bad off. Both legs were broken, and he had a concussion. I didn’t dare leave him, and besides, I’m a nurse. No one could take better care of him than me.” Tears trickled down both cheeks.
“What about the burns?” Bree wanted to know.
Rachel dropped her gaze. “He tried to start a fire when I wasn’t around.”
Horror moved in a freezing wave over Bree. “He could have been killed!”
“But he wasn’t,” Rachel said with a touch of defiance.
Bree thought there was more to the story than the woman was telling, but she’d find it all out later. At least they were minor burns. She would call the doctor right away. “Go on with the rest of the story,” she told Rachel.
Rachel nodded. “By the time he was well enough for me to take him into town, I couldn’t do it. I never had any kids of my own, you see. Sam—Davy, I mean—he and I took to one another right off.”
“Did he ever ask for me?” Bree asked. Jealousy scalded her with red-hot fury. Davy was her son. Though she should just be thankful this woman cared for him, she couldn’t help the burning resentment.
Rachel nodded again. “In the beginning. As time went on, he seemed content here.” She clutched her hands together in her lap. “You have to understand . . . I loved him so much.”
Rachel’s obvious sincerity softened Bree’s anger.
“When the man said people were looking for him, I knew I had to get away.”
“What man?” Bree asked.
“I don’t know his name, but he’s buying the old mine.” She nervously looked out the window again, as if searching for something. “He killed the bank manager’s wife, and I knew he’d kill me too. I saw him put her body in his trunk.”
So it was all true. But why had Palmer killed Rob? Could Rob have threatened to blow the whistle on his plans? Could that have been his motive? She had to find out the truth.
“He knew you had Davy?” That hurt too. Palmer had witnessed her grief all these months, and for the last few weeks, he’d known Davy was alive.
Rachel nodded. “He said if I didn’t tell what I saw, then he wouldn’t tell that I had Davy.”
Bree heard Samson’s welcoming bark and went to the door. Before she could open it, Mason burst in with Naomi on his tail. His gaze centered on Bree’s face, and he went to her and enveloped her in a huge hug.
“Kade called me on his way to get the snowmobiles. He said his cell phone must have been in a dead spot because he got a signal once he was on the road. Where’s Davy?” He spotted the little boy lying on the bed. Tears came to his eyes. “Wait until Hilary and Anu hear. I haven’t called them yet. I thought you’d want to surprise them.”
“I do,” she said, a smile curving her lips at the thought of their wonder. “But there’s more, Mason.” She quickly filled him in on what she suspected about Palmer.
Rachel stood and turned to the window. Bree watched her as she spoke to Mason. She was wringing her hands.
Mason seemed to absorb it all quietly. “We’ve got Rachel to testify that she saw him carrying Fay’s body, but we need proof he killed Rob.”
The distant whine of a snowmobile reached Bree’s ears. “Are they back already?” she said, glancing at her watch. “It’s too soon.”
“It’s him,” Rachel cried, clearly agitated. “He told me I had to take him to the plane today. I was hoping we’d be gone before he got back. You have to get away; he’ll kill you!”
Naomi and Mason stared at her, but Bree ran to Davy and scooped him up. He awoke and smiled sleepily at her. She popped him into his coat. “I’ve got an idea,” she said. She handed Davy to Naomi. “Go with Aunt Naomi, sweetheart. She’ll take you out to play with Samson and Charley.”
Davy frowned and reached for his mother. It hurt Bree not to be able to take him in her arms.
“What are you going to do?” Naomi asked.
The roar of the snowmobile grew louder. “Mason, grab our snowshoes from out front. And the dogs—get them in here.” Bree snatched up some of the discarded clothes by the door and hurried to the bed. She stuffed them under the blanket to make it look like Davy’s small body still lay there.
“Rachel, act like nothing is wrong. Take him to the plane. Mason and I will be hiding nearby. We’ll surprise him, see if we can get him to confess. Naomi, keep Davy out of harm’s way.”
“I don’t like this,” Naomi said, putting on her snowshoes. The dogs whimpered, sensing something was wrong.
“I don’t either,” Mason said. “But it’s the best shot we’ve got.” He and Bree put on their snowshoes as well.
The whine of the snowmobile stopped abruptly by the front door. “Go, go,” Bree hissed. She hurried to the back door and shooed Naomi through with Davy and the dogs, then she and Mason followed. She could only hope and pray Rachel would be able to carry off her part of the plan.
She sent Naomi, Davy, and the dogs off to the west while she and Mason headed east to the plane. “Let’s get inside,” she told Mason. He nodded, and they climbed inside and crouched down out of sight.
The minutes ticked by as the cold seeped into Bree’s bones. Then she heard voices approach.
“Down there,” Rachel said.
“At last.” Palmer’s voice was exultant.
Bree’s stomach flipped, and she clutched his screwdriver in her hand.
“I think you should let me confront him,” Mason whispered.
“You’re backup,” she whispered. “He’ll think he can overpower me. He won’t know you’re here, and he’ll reveal more to me.” Mason sighed, and she knew she’d won.
“Wait here,” Palmer told Rachel. “I need to retrieve something from the plane, then I’ll be out of your life.” The whoosh of his snowshoes came closer.
Bree’s chest hurt with tension. Glancing at the screwdriver in her hand, she remembered the incident she’d been trying to think of. When she’d eaten dinner with the Chambers family, Lily had mentioned a tiff they’d had when Palmer couldn’t find a missing screwdriver. Evidently, he’d figured out where it was.
Bree rose from her hiding place and held up the screwdriver. “Looking for this, Palmer?”
He stopped in his tracks. Shock slackened his mouth, then his eyes went flat and hard as he recognized the screwdriver in her hand.
“You were our friend, Palmer. How could you kill Rob? Was it because he was going to stop you from getting your hands on that mine?”
“We were buddies,” Palmer said. “He should have been excited to be a part of it.”
“You never counted on his faith interfering, did you? He told you it was wrong, and you couldn’t let him tell Fay about the gold.”
“Looks like you’ve got it all figured out.”
“Enough to know you killed my husband. Why don’t you tell me the rest?”
Palmer gave her the smile she’d once found charming. “I wanted him as a partner for the new venture. We could have extracted the gold with new technology and made a fortune. He thought we should tell Fay and Steve about the gold and let them decide whether to sell with full disclosure. I couldn’t believe it! He wanted to turn down a chance to make millions. Millions! What kind of man would do that?”
“A righteous one,” Bree said. This sounded more like the Rob she knew.
Palmer made a face. “I knew he would blab everything when he got back.”
“My call didn’t help his distraction,” Bree murmured.
Palmer grinned. “I thought you’d tell everyone about that.”
For a minute what he said failed to register. Then her eyes widened, and she wanted to hit him. “You had someone call. There was no other woman, was there? Rob was never unfaithful,” she whispered.
“People would think he downed the plane out of guilt.”
Bree just managed to keep her shock in check. “Her real name is Lanna Martin, not March, isn’t it?”
“You figured that out too, huh? You’re smarter than I gave you credit for.”
Bree struggled to reconcile this cold stranger with the man who’d been such a good friend. “I met her,” she said. The familiarity of the woman’s voice hadn’t been her imagination. “You went to the lake to make sure Rob hadn’t told anyone about the gold.”
“I went to try one more time to convince him. I didn’t want to kill him, but the creditors were hounding me. I would have lost everything.”
“But he still wouldn’t listen, so you sabotaged the plane and made sure he wouldn’t spoil your plans. You didn’t care about killing Davy with him.” It was almost too much to take in. “And Fay found out about the gold anyway, so you had to kill her too. I would imagine you called her on her cell phone and had her meet you at the mine.”
Palmer shrugged. “Very good.”
“The assayer had told her about the gold, and she was going to cancel the sale. So you killed her and put her body at the foot of the cliff.” She moved from the plane cabin to the ground and approached him, even though Mason had warned her to keep her distance. She wanted to look in the eyes of the man who’d befriended her, the man she’d turned to when she grieved. Bree wanted to strike him, to put her hands around his neck and choke the life out of him. She stared at this man she’d known and loved as a brother.
In one smooth movement, Palmer’s hand dipped into his jacket and came out with a gun. “You wanted to find Rob. Now I’ll just have to send you where he is.” He cocked the hammer on the gun.
Bree stared into the barrel of the gun. She couldn’t let Davy be orphaned. Why hadn’t she listened to Mason’s warning? At all costs she had to stay out of Mason’s line of fire. He would know how to handle Palmer.
Mason popped up with a gun aimed at Palmer. “Throw down your gun,” he ordered.
Palmer didn’t even blink. His arm snaked out and pulled Bree against him. He pressed the gun against her head. “Drop it, Mason,” he ordered.
“You drop it,” Mason said.
Bree trembled, but it was more from anger than from fear. Palmer couldn’t be allowed to get away with it. “Don’t listen to him, Mason,” she said.
“You have no choice, Sheriff,” Palmer said. “Shoot me, and my gun goes off.”
For a long moment, Bree thought Mason would refuse to drop his gun, then a hiss of frustration came from his throat, and he tossed the gun to the ground, where it disappeared into the snow.
“Come along, Sheriff. It’s cold out here. I think we can conclude our business back at the cabin.” Holding Bree in front of him, he marched his prisoners back up the hill. They met Rachel at the top, too terrified to have considered running for help, Bree imagined.
If only Samson were here. If only she had a weapon. Palmer meant to kill them; she could see it in his darkened eyes, blank as a reptile’s.
Inside the cabin, he grabbed a rope hanging on a nail by the door and tossed it to Rachel. “Tie them up. Be quick about it.”
Rachel slowly took the rope and tied Mason to a chair, then tied Bree’s hands behind her back.
“Make it tight,” Palmer said.
Rachel cinched the rope. The rough hemp bit into Bree’s wrists, and she winced.
“Now tie her to the chair by the bed.” Palmer moved closer and watched as Rachel pushed Bree into the chair and looped the rope around the back.
Bree flexed her muscles, thankful she’d been working out and had muscles to flex. Maybe she could create enough slack to work her way free. She prayed for God to send help. Her mind raced for a way out. The gun pointed straight at her heart. If she could keep Palmer talking until Kade and Steve got back, maybe they could overpower him.
Her heart leaped when she heard a familiar sound at the door. Samson. His low growl told her he knew something was wrong. “How much does Lily know?” she asked, desperate to distract him.
“None of it. She would have talked to Fay. She’s way too honest. We always said we balanced each other out.” He laughed uproariously at his joke. He motioned with his gun toward Rachel. “Sit down.” When she obeyed, he lashed her to the rocker.
Bree had to keep him talking. “So why move Fay to the cliff? Mason would likely have assumed she fell and hit her head at the mine.”
“Authorities investigating her death might have found something. I couldn’t run the risk. She was already dressed for climbing, and I thought no one would be the wiser.”
This was like something out of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The Palmer she thought she knew would recoil at the thought of murder. Who was this man?
“Enough chatter. I’m afraid the time has come to say good-bye, and I have to admit it makes me sad. Lily will be devastated, and I so hate to make her unhappy.” His eyes held a sheen of moisture as though he really did regret what he had to do.
“What are you going to do with us?” Rachel asked in a small voice.
“I thought about locking you in the mine and caving it in, but your bodies would eventually be found. I should shoot you, but it needs to look like an accident.” His gaze wandered to the stove. “A fire. There will be no evidence left to determine cause of death.”
“Our skeletons will be lashed to chairs,” Bree said desperately. “And you think that won’t look like foul play?” Think, think. What could she use as a weapon?
“I’ll have to take that chance,” Palmer said. “With a little luck, the rope will burn up too.”
How long had it been since Kade and Steve left, maybe an hour? They should be back by now.
Palmer approached the stove and picked up the packet of matches lying there. Samson was growling and whining even louder outside the door. Bree had one chance. She shrieked at the top of her lungs. “Samson, help!”
Palmer brought the gun around in alarm as seventy pounds of brown, black, and white fury crashed through the window. Glass shattered inward with a shower of shards. Snarling, Samson leaped onto Palmer and seized his hand in his jaws. Both man and dog crashed to the floor, Palmer kicking and shouting as Samson pinned him down with his teeth on his arm.
Wriggling her arms in the ropes, Bree felt the strands loosen.
Screaming in anger, Palmer tried to bring the gun up to shoot Samson, but the dog whipped his head back and forth, and the gun flew from Palmer’s fingers. With his front paws on Palmer’s chest, Samson pushed his muzzle against Palmer’s throat.
At the feel of the dog’s teeth, Palmer screamed and thrashed. “Get him off me!”
“Lie still, Palmer, or he’ll tear your throat out,” Bree warned.
Bree finally felt the rope give. Twisting her wrists, she managed to get one free, then the other. She jumped to her feet and dived for the gun.
Bree pointed the pistol at Palmer and moved to untie Mason. “Samson, release,” she commanded.
With a final growl, the dog stepped back, his eyes still following Palmer’s every move. Palmer shook himself and got slowly to his feet. His wide-eyed stare fastened on the gun in Bree’s hand.
“You know you won’t use that,” he said easily. He started toward her, but Samson immediately moved to block him. The dog’s low growl stopped Palmer in his tracks.
“I will shoot you if I have to,” Bree said. “I won’t let you hurt anyone else.” She’d never shot a gun, but she’d empty every bullet in this gun into Palmer if he forced her.
“Sit in that chair,” she ordered.
Palmer must have seen the intent in her face, for his smile faded and he moved slowly to the chair. Keeping an eye on him, Bree finally got Mason free and gave him the gun. She picked up the rope and tied Palmer to the chair.
An ironic smile touched the corners of his mouth. “You’ve surprised me, Bree. I didn’t know you could be so ruthless. Have you thought about what this will do to Lily and the girls? You could just let me go. I’ll get Lily and the twins and leave town.”
“You killed two people, Palmer,” Mason said. “Even if she wanted to, I couldn’t let you go.”
Bree called Samson to her. She saw the bloody tracks he left on the floor. “You’re hurt,” she said softly. She knelt to check on the dog’s wounds. Once she made sure the blood was from superficial cuts, she put her arms around him and buried her face in his fur. He’d risked his life for her. “Thanks, Samson,” she whispered as he licked her face. Then she rose to go to her son.