“We’ve done a lot of mad things, but this has to be the maddest,” said Harper as they inched their way along a rope that they’d secured to the porch railings. “It’s Snowmaggedon out here. What if one of us breaks a limb or catches pneumonia? We can’t exactly call for help. How do we get to the emergency room—by husky sled? Oh, I forgot. We don’t have one.”
“Yes, but it’s our fault that Rocky was bitten.” Kat raised her voice to compete with the wailing wind. “There was always a chance he’d come back. We should have created a safe area for him. He must have got the shock of his life to find six huskies lying in wait. Now he’s bleeding. He might need stitches or an antibiotic.” She turned away, shouting over her shoulder, “Go be in the warm Dog House if that’s what you want. I’m going to find Rocky.”
“Okay, okay,” grizzled Harper as spiky shards of ice needled her cheeks. “Kat, wait. I promise we won’t give up till you’re one hundred percent satisfied that he’s the happiest, healthiest raccoon in all the Adirondacks. But maybe there’s a better way.”
“What better way?”
For all her fighting talk, Kat was ready to consider all options. The chef at the Full-Belly Deli had been talking from experience when he warned them about winter in the wilderness. She no longer doubted that a person could freeze to death in their own backyard.
“We’re detectives,” said Harper, steering Kat beneath the shelter of the porch. “Let’s use detective techniques to track Rocky down. When you saw him up close, was his fur wet? Did he look bedraggled?”
“Not at all.”
“Trust me, if Rocky was outside in this beast of a storm for even five minutes, he’d have looked like a raccoon Popsicle. I think his den is indoors.”
Kat, who was rapidly turning into a Kat Popsicle, was sufficiently interested in Harper’s theory to allow herself to be led back into the cabin. There, they evicted two huskies from the hearth and unthawed their hands over the flames.
“Say you’re right and Rocky’s den is in the Dog House,” said Kat. “Any idea where it might be? We’ve explored every corner of it. We’ve unlocked every door, opened every cupboard.”
As she spoke, she felt an unpleasant prickle of conscience. Sooner or later, the storm would be over and the cabin’s owner would come roaring up the drive. There’d be a reckoning. Her mum and Harper’s dad would go berserk once they learned the truth and saw the state of the Dog House. They could be sued. Kat was not looking forward to it.
“You read more mysteries than I do,” Harper was saying. “When the detective stumbles across secret passages or hidden rooms, where are they generally located?”
“Behind bookcases,” Kat answered at once. “Or under floorboards or rugs.”
“We can rule out this room or the kitchen because the huskies would have sniffed out any raccoon den days ago. And there can’t be a secret passage behind the bookcase on the top floor because the shower’s on the other side of the wall.”
“Also, I keep tripping over the rug in our room,” said Kat. “So I can tell you for sure that there’s nothing hidden under there. And the front of the cabin is on stilts, so there’s nothing under there.”
Their eyes met. There was only one other possibility.
They flew to the door that led to the main bedroom with such enthusiasm that Kat skidded in her socks and almost did need to be stretchered off to the ER.
It was the only bit of the cabin that they and the huskies hadn’t managed to destroy. The geometric rug at the foot of the bed was pristine. Harper lifted it with the flourish of a stagehand raising a theater curtain.
The trapdoor beneath wasn’t even locked.
“Before, when I said you were a genius, I didn’t mean it,” said Kat.
“Thanks…?”
“Now I do.”
They descended the steps with extreme trepidation, frightened of what they might find.
“What if the owner has been here all along—frozen into a statue in the basement?” said Harper when they were halfway down. “Could be a whole family.”
Kat’s head filled with images of skeletons sagging amid piles of moth-eaten clothes, rusty bikes, or three-legged Adirondack chairs. If she hadn’t been so anxious about Rocky, she’d have refused to go on.
The first surprise was that the light flickered on. “Must be solar or be powered by some external source,” said Harper. “Why else would this light work and the rest of the place be in darkness?”
The second surprise was that a husky racing sled was parked on the gleaming linoleum floor of a large storeroom. Harnesses, snow boots, and other husky equipment was stacked nearby or hung neatly on hooks. Kat realized now that the snow-covered trellis they’d glimpsed when they walked back from the kennels must have disguised the garage-type door, cut into the side of the hill.
At the back of the storeroom was a dog bed and water and food bowls—both empty. Curled up in the bed, looking dejected but unafraid, was the raccoon.
Kat realized immediately that she’d been mistaken about his wilderness den. “He’s somebody’s pet,” she said, picking him up and cradling him in her arms. “Probably an orphan. Look, there’s the doggy door so he can go outside, and there’s the pipe he uses to climb to the kitchen. He must have been so frightened and hungry when his rescuer didn’t come home.”
While Kat examined Rocky for cuts and abrasions, Harper took a look around. She tried the door of a tall steel cabinet and gave a low whistle.
“Whoever lives here is a prepper.”
“What’s a prepper?”
“Someone who believes in preparing for worst-case scenarios like a war or a natural disaster. They’re survivalists. They tend to believe that if there’s a super volcano, say, and things fall apart, everyone’s on their own. They don’t depend on the government.”
“We are on our own,” said Kat. “And nobody from the government has come to help us. What do you need to be a prepper?”
Harper waved an arm. “This stuff. Cans of lentils, beans, carrots, and tomatoes. Massive bags of rice and pasta. Waterproof matches. Flints to start fires. Water purifiers. Space blankets. A tent, a sleeping bag, and a camping stove. Solar panels. Oh, goody, there are wind-up flashlights and lamps. Candles too. Let’s take everything upstairs.”
Kat put down Rocky. He’d suffered a minor nip but was otherwise unharmed. “Pass me the first aid kit.” She unzipped the bulging bag. “This is ten times better than mine. Antibiotics, dressings, painkillers, and Steri-Strips. They’re used for stitching wounds. A scalpel too. Who needs a doctor? What have you found?”
Harper was wrestling a heavy black case from the bottom shelf. She hesitated for a moment, hands trembling, before popping the silver catches. “Forget what I said about the cabin being cursed. I’m starting to think it’s my dream house. This, dear Kat, is an Earth2Sky 4800 portable satellite terminal. It’ll connect to the internet in under sixty seconds whether you’re on the Southern Ocean or the summit of Everest. Works off a car battery as well, so electricity is optional.”
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“I’m saying that if we want to find Riley, this is our best shot.”