Someone's using these mountains for something they don't want noticed. Someone with enough resources to maintain access to abandoned infrastructure. Someone comfortable operating in territory most people would rather avoid.
The question is whether Cara's investigation and mine are about to intersect in ways neither of us can control.
We reach Glacier Hollow as afternoon fades toward evening. Main Street looks exactly as it did when we left: weathered storefronts, pickup trucks, amber streetlights starting to glow against approaching dusk. Normal, peaceful, completely unaware that a fugitive FBI agent just spent six hours in my truck asking questions that might expose ugly truths.
I pull up outside The Hollow Hearth where Cara's rental SUV still sits parked. Kill the engine and face her directly for the first time since we left the Kowalskis' homestead.
"So," I say. "What happens now?"
"I keep investigating." Determination runs through every word. "Look for connections. Build evidence. Figure out who's moving product through these communities and who's protecting them."
"And if you find proof?"
"Then I bring them down." Simple statement, no bravado. Just certainty that she'll finish what she started three years ago. "However long it takes. Whatever it costs."
"That's a lonely way to operate."
"It's the only way I have left." She reaches for the door handle, and for a moment her carefully maintained composure cracks. Exhaustion shows through the professional mask. Fear, determination, grief for the life she lost, all of it visible inunguarded eyes. "Thank you for not turning me in. And for giving me a chance to explain."
"I haven't decided what I'm going to do yet," I remind her.
"I know." She opens the door, cold air rushing into the warm cab. "But you gave me today. That's more than I expected."
Cara climbs out, shoulders her bag, walks to her rental SUV without looking back. I watch her drive away, disappearing toward the Northern Lights Lodge where she's probably running through security protocols and contingency plans in case I change my mind about calling the authorities.
I sit in my truck as darkness settles over Glacier Hollow. Tire tracks on abandoned roads. An elderly woman losing her memory while someone uses her community as cover. Cara's eyes when her mask slipped, showing exactly how much ground she's lost chasing ghosts through three years of winter.
My phone sits in the cupholder. One call ends this. One call sends her back to face charges that might be legitimate or might be as manufactured as the evidence that destroyed her career.
I pick up the phone. Set it back down.
Tomorrow I'll make my decision. Tonight I just need to understand what I saw in those tire tracks and why they make my instincts scream the same way Cara's investigation does.
3
CARA
The laptop screen casts blue light across my face in the darkened room. Outside, wind rattles the windows and sends snow skittering against the glass. The Northern Lights Lodge is quiet at this hour, just me and the files that have consumed years of my life.
Tom Rearden's official reports fill one window. Sanitized, approved language about routine investigations into trafficking patterns along the Alaska coast. Nothing that would raise red flags. Nothing that would get him killed. But I've learned to read between the lines. The gaps in his reports tell me more than the words themselves. Cases that went nowhere. Leads that dried up. Witnesses who disappeared. The pattern of obstruction is clear once you know how to look for it.
Another window shows photographs from Tom's investigation. Coded references, location markers, supply route maps with notations only another agent would recognize. Tom was careful, methodical, documenting everything while keeping the real investigation off official channels. Smart. It kept him alive longer than it should have.
The third window contains my own investigation. Years of following money trails that evaporate, tracking rumors throughcriminal networks, piecing together fragments that never quite form a complete picture. I've been sending anonymous tips to the task force working out of Whitewater Junction. Information I can't use myself because I'm a fugitive, but information too valuable to let die with me.
I've never revealed my identity to them. I can't risk it when someone high enough to manufacture evidence and frame me for Stormwatch is still out there, still protecting the network Tom died investigating.
My reflection stares back from the screen. Older, harder, with eyes that watch for threats in every shadow.
The memory surfaces without permission, pulling me into that morning three years ago.
Dawn breaks cold over Seattle. I'm in body armor, checking my weapon for the third time while twenty agents prepare for the raid that will dismantle the West Coast trafficking network in one coordinated strike. Six months of building this case, coordinating three agencies, gathering airtight intelligence that points to this warehouse as the central hub. My hands are steady. My mind is clear. Everything is ready.
Everyone confirms they're in position. I give the signal. We breach.
The warehouse is empty.
Not just empty of people. Empty of everything. Fresh paint on the walls. Clean floors. Security cameras pointing at nothing. Like someone scrubbed the location hours before we arrived, leaving just enough evidence to prove there had been some kind of activity but not enough to prosecute anyone.
