“Never again,” said Harper from the depths of the sofa, pressing a palm to her forehead in the manner of a Victorian heroine taken poorly after a country walk. A bone-thawing soak in a bubble bath aside, she’d been horizontal on the cushions since their return.
“Never, ever again,” she added for good measure. “For the next forty-eight hours, I refuse to set one foot outside of this cabin unless the roof is on fire or there’s a nuclear war. If the Dog House—that’s what I’m naming this place—is still standing after Storm Mindy’s finished pounding it, we can text our parents and beg them to collect us by limo and transport us to a five-star hotel in New York City. I am so done with the wilderness. Do not even show me an ant.”
Kat didn’t blame her. There were only so many near-death experiences a person could stand in one week without feeling overwhelmed. When she thought about the tree branch that had almost crushed them in Jet’s truck, the runaway “toboggan,” the near-bear attack, and the blizzard they’d stumbled through afterward, it did chill her blood just a little.
It was almost as if she had nine lives, like a cat. Cowering before the bear just a few hours earlier, Kat had been sure that if she made one false move, her current life would be over.
But it wasn’t over. Nor, for all her protestations, was Harper’s. Their lives were richer, and they were braver. Thanks to the heroism of the huskies, they’d survived to tell the tale. Kat knew she’d never forget the majesty of the black bear as it reared to its full height in the forest. It had worn its wildness like a cloak.
With snowflakes drifting all around it, the creature had seemed almost enchanted: a spirit bear from another world. Then it had attacked and become a monster. Now in Kat’s mind it was something in between: a wild, free creature deserving of respect.
It wasn’t only the bear that had had a fairy-tale aura about it that day. Guiding the girls home through the blinding snow, Thunder, Rebel, Matty, and Dancer had flanked them so closely that Kat had felt hugged; a valued member of their precious pack. The huskies’ body warmth and loyalty had kept her going when all she wanted to do was give up. Without them, she and Harper would not have made it back to the cabin, of that Kat was horribly certain.
They’d clawed their way indoors in the nick of time. The big question now was whether the Dog House was built to withstand a storm like Mindy. The whole cabin shook, rattled, and strained under the force of the gale. The lake and mountain had been erased.
Even the huskies were glad to be indoors. They’d saved the girls’ lives, but in a way, Kat and Harper had saved the huskies’ lives first. Their kennels offered minimal shelter. Left alone in the storm without food, water, or extra blankets, the dogs wouldn’t have lasted the night.
Instead, they were safely inside and loving it. On the sofa, Harper was laughing as Dancer and Rebel scrambled up to snuggle her. “I get the feeling the huskies have adopted us. Whether we like it or not, we’re their family now.”
“Yes, we are,” said Kat, feeling a rush of affection for their furry friends. “We belong to them, and they belong to us.”
She squeezed between Nomad and Fleet on the other sofa. “Harper, what we did today was stupidly risky and selfish and it could have ended—nearly did end—everything. But I don’t regret it. We did what we did to try to save Riley.”
“I don’t regret it either,” said Harper. “Not one bit.”
Reluctantly, she reached for the TV remote. “Shall we do it?”
“We have to. Not knowing is worse.”
They didn’t need to wait long. Riley Matthews was headline news.
A now familiar newsreader said, “Daylesford Bank chairman Wainwright Matthews has posted a one-million-dollar reward for information leading to the safe return of his twelve-year-old daughter, Riley Gabriella, missing in the Adirondacks since early this morning.
“There are growing fears that Riley, star witness in the upcoming trial of alleged Wish List gangster Gerry Meeks, has been abducted. Riley’s protection officers, who were both wounded in the ambush, remain critically ill and under armed guard in the ICU at an undisclosed hospital. Detectives hoping to glean some answers on the ambush are likely to face a long wait.
“Search-and-rescue efforts have also been hampered by Storm Mindy, which has brought whiteout conditions to the northern Adirondacks. With emergency services stretched to capacity and many roads impassable, detectives are concentrating their efforts on trying to track down Meeks’s unidentified accomplices. Progress has been slow due to the number of copycat Wish List crimes—”
Harper muted the TV. “The good news is, so far as anyone can tell, Riley’s still alive.”
“The bad news is, she’s probably in the clutches of vengeful Wish List villains,” Kat said emotionally. “How can the police have failed so spectacularly to find Riley when somebody else obviously did? Why can’t they identify the other members of the gang? Nine heists and their only suspect is a ninety-one-year-old. It’s pathetic.”
“If only I had my laptop,” fumed Harper for the hundredth time. “We could show those plodding gumshoes a thing or two about solving mysteries.”
“How would a laptop save Riley?” asked Kat. “What use is it as a crime-fighting device without the internet?”
Harper stared at her in mystification. “Among other things, it has Excel. I could have set up a spreadsheet to organize our clues. Without a laptop, I’m like a musician without an instrument, a dancer without a stage, a champion jockey without a racehorse, a—”
“I get it,” sighed Kat. “But you could always use a pencil and paper.”
“That’s only one step up from dipping a porcupine quill in blood and berry juice and drawing wildebeests on a cave wall,” Harper said melodramatically.
Kat threw up her hands. “Then I can’t help you. I’m going to bake an apple crumble. Some of us don’t need a laptop to organize our clues. We can use our brains.”