Kat caught her breath as she trudged up the last few feet of the Summit Trail, snowshoes heavy on her feet. It was just a thirty-minute side trip from the main trail to the place where Svensson had plunged to his death, but her detour yielded nothing. No trace of the economist or his mysterious female companion. No sign left by the police, or search and rescue either.
Had Jace followed this same trail before her? There was no way to know for sure, not with the new snow. Other than some deer tracks crossing on either side of the trail, the mountain would keep its secrets.
She paused for a moment as she took in the breathtaking view of the inlet. Not a place that inspired suicide, if any place actually did. It was also remote—getting here took quite an effort for someone intent on giving up on life. She was weary after two hours of almost constant uphill. But it wasn’t the physical exertion that tired her. It was the mental anguish, not knowing where to find Harry or Jace. She had always turned to Jace, but this time he wasn’t here to help her.
After arriving at Hideaway Bay, she changed her mind and decided to report the snowplow before embarking on the trail. But the Hideaway Bay RCMP station had been locked up, a Be Back Soon note taped to the door.
What kind of police station locks its doors? The same kind that don’t return phone calls about missing people, she thought. It made no sense. But then Hideaway Bay was a bit of a sleeper town. Other than the resort, not much happened there. She’d return tomorrow, but first she wanted to check the one place she might find Jace.
Kat still held a thin sliver of hope that Jace had gone to Kurt Ritter’s cabin. Kurt and Jace had become close friends through search and rescue, even though they covered different territories. Assuming he escaped Nathan, Kurt’s cabin was the only shelter within hiking distance.
Jace had been anxious to retrace Svensson’s last steps. They had even argued about it, with Kat thinking it was a waste of time. Jace always kept his search and rescue gear in the car, so it was plausible that he had retrieved it from the resort parking lot. Maybe he was hiding out at the cabin? She felt a surge of hope.
Kurt headed the Sunshine Coast Search and Rescue team, and was likely on scene when Svensson’s body was recovered. At the very least Jace would be itching to talk to him. The big German’s cabin was a further forty-five minutes once she backtracked to the main trail, and Kat and Jace had overnighted there on backcountry hikes many times. She’d have to spend the night this time too, as the sun had dropped almost to the horizon. Even at the forty-ninth parallel, dusk came quickly at this time of year.
No cell phone reception meant whoever had answered Jace’s phone earlier today wasn’t here. It was also possible that Jace was here and had no way of contacting whoever she was. She felt a surge of hope as she bent down to refasten her snowshoes. She turned around and set off back down the hill.
The descent went much faster than the climb. Without exertion, her now-damp clothing chilled her. Her thoughts wandered to Jace. If he hadn’t been so insistent on covering the World Institute, she would have wrapped up the Edgewater fraud case by now. She had all she needed with those documents in hand, but Jace had insisted on collaborating with Roger Landers. She never should have brought him, knowing that for him a story scoop overrode everything else. Especially after he was dumped by the Sentinel. But she had underestimated the World Institute, power, and what it did to people.
Finally the cabin came into view and it couldn’t have been a more welcome sight. Kurt had built the log cabin himself from local timber. It was rustic but functional, comfortable and comforting. Kat wouldn’t have traded it for a luxury suite. Exhaustion overtook her as she reached the front door. She couldn’t take another step. She unfastened her snowshoes and felt under the clay flowerpot for the hidden key. Kat always chided Kurt for keeping a flowerpot at a cabin surrounded by alpine meadow. Both were now invisible under the heavy blanket of snow.
She opened the door and trudged inside. She was weary to the bone, though it was still only late afternoon.
The small cabin was furnished in a masculine, functional sort of way. The A-frame had stairs to a loft upstairs with two bedrooms. She had stayed in one of them with Jace last summer. She scanned the room, feeling the weight of all her troubles. Jace was gone, Harry unaccounted for, and Hillary was scheming up something that could only be trouble. She had never felt so alone.
Kat sighed and dropped her pack on the large pine table. She stooped to gather an armful of wood from the neatly stacked pile beside the wood stove. The stove was cold. No one had been here recently. She lit the stove and stoked the fire until it burned steadily. Then she headed outside to replenish the kindling before darkness fell. Cold air gusted in as she opened the door. The stove’s heat hadn’t permeated the cabin yet, but the building’s log-and-chink construction still provided excellent insulation from the cold.
She circled the building, trudging through the snow, hoping against hope for any sign of Jace, Kurt, or any other visitors. No human or even animal tracks within sight. Even the woodpile stacked against the side of the cabin seemed undisturbed from when she and Jace visited in September.
Untouched.
A twig snapped. She jumped as she caught a flash of movement in her peripheral vision. It was just a rabbit racing for the cover of bush a few yards away. She stood still for a moment as she adjusted to the quiet. Snow slipped off the branches of the tall jack pines, landing with a soft plumpf. The trees surrounding the cabin usually gave it a cozy feel. But in today’s late afternoon they seemed eerie, casting long shadows across the white landscape.
She loaded the wood onto her arms and trudged back to the front door, wincing as her arm hit the doorjamb. Her bicep still smarted from Victoria’s needle jab. Enough fuel to last the night. She dumped the wood beside the stove. Tomorrow she would return on a different route, hoping for some sign of Jace. Maybe he was injured, unable to reach the cabin. A long shot, but she had nothing else to go on.
She kicked off her Sorel boots and laid her wet clothes out in front of the stove before collapsing into the oversized armchair facing the stove. She knew she should eat, but couldn’t even muster enough energy to open her pack on the table a few feet away. Instead, she closed her eyes and felt the heat slowly warm her bones. Wilderness trekking always reminded her how truly immense the world was. Why was it controlled by so few?