"But someone warned them anyway."
"Someone with access to operational details." Everything about her goes controlled, locked down. "Someone who knew exactly when and where we'd strike. The warehouse was completely clean when we hit it. Not just empty. Scrubbed. Like it had never been used for trafficking at all."
"Inside job." I state it as fact, not question.
"Professional one," she confirms. "IA investigated everyone involved. Started finding evidence that pointed to me. Bank deposits I didn't make, emails I didn't send, phone records placing me in locations I'd never visited."
"Someone with resources and access."
"Very much so." The bitterness returns. "Someone protecting the trafficking network we tried to shut down."
"And you think that someone operates through Alaska."
"I think it's the same network Tom Rearden was investigating before he died." She pauses, gauges my reaction to the name. "You knew him?"
"I met him a while back. He came through asking questions about supply routes and federal presence in remote communities." Tom sitting in Sadie's café much like Cara did yesterday, asking careful questions while taking mental notes. "Seemed competent. Thorough."
"He was both." Cara's tone softens fractionally. "He was also getting close to something that got him killed."
"The official report called it an accident." I keep my eyes on the road. "What makes you think otherwise?"
"The timeline. The fact that he died four months before Stormwatch went sideways." Her words come measured, careful. "Tom was methodical. Careful. The kind of agent who triple-checked his routes and maintained his vehicle. But somehow his brakes failed on a mountain road he'd driven dozens of times?"
I've thought the same thing myself. Tom struck me as competent, the kind of operator who didn't make careless mistakes. "Convenient timing."
"Very." The steel returns to her voice. "Tom was murdered because he figured out how they're moving product through Alaska. And I'm here to finish what he started."
I process that while navigating around a fallen branch partially blocking the road. Cara's actively hunting the people who destroyed her career and killed a fellow agent.
"What makes you think Glacier Hollow is involved?" I ask.
"Tom's official reports mentioned this area. Supply routes. Military logistics. Federal protection at the local level." She watches me carefully. "He suspected someone was using remote communities as transit points."
"Using us." Anger sparks in my chest. "Using people who trust each other, who depend on those supply lines, as cover for trafficking."
"Yes."
Single word again, but it carries weight. Confirmation that someone has weaponized the same community bonds that keep people alive up here. That whoever's behind this understands how isolation and interdependence create blind spots in law enforcement coverage.
"So what's your plan?" I keep my expression neutral. "Assuming I don't turn you in right now."
"Find evidence that connects specific individuals to the trafficking network." Clinical precision returns to her delivery. "Build a case that's so airtight they can't ignore it or bury it. Expose whoever framed me in the process."
"And if the evidence points to someone in Glacier Hollow? Someone Sadie trusts? Someone I know?"
"Then I prove it anyway." No hesitation, no apology. "I didn't come this far to protect guilty people."
Fair enough. Cold, but fair. I can respect that even if I don't like the implications.
We drive another twenty minutes before Raymond and Judith's homestead appears around the next bend. Smoke rises from the chimney of a well-maintained cabin surrounded by outbuildings showing forty years of careful upkeep. Firewood stands stacked under tarps. A garden plot lies dormant under mulch, waiting for spring.
I pull up near the porch, and Raymond emerges before I've killed the engine. He's in his seventies, moving stiffly but purposefully, wearing layers against the cold that probably aggravates his arthritis. His face breaks into a genuine smile when he sees the truck.
"Finn! Right on schedule." His words carry the roughness of decades spent in cold air. "Judith said you'd make it before the weather turned."
"Brought everything on your list." I climb out, feel my left arm protest slightly in the cold. Nerve damage hatestemperature extremes. "Plus some extras Sadie thought you might need."
Cara exits the passenger side, and Raymond's attention focuses on her with natural curiosity. "Got yourself some company today?"
