Page 4

"Yvonne asked me to look out for you." He says it like that settles the matter entirely, no further explanation needed. "This is part of that."

"Still. You didn't have to stay this long."

"Didn't want you staying here tonight without knowing the door's secure," he says. "That's all."

It isn't all, I don't think. But I don't push, and neither does he.

Before he leaves, he writes a number on the back of an old receipt from his truck and hands it to me. "Landline reaches me faster than you'd think," he says. "If anything else feels wrong, anything at all, call. Doesn't matter what time."

I take the paper, aware of how carefully he avoids letting our hands touch when he passes it over, and something about that restraint makes me trust him more than if he hadn't bothered.

"I will," I say, and mean it.

He nods once, glances around the cabin one last time like he's cataloging every possible way in, and heads back out into the fading light. I watch him go from the window, the new deadbolt solid under my palm.

I don't know what's happening here. I don't know who was in my cabin or why. But I don't feel entirely alone in facing it.

4

KELLAN

Iwiden my morning sweep past the usual boundary lines, out toward the logging road that cuts off the county highway a mile and a half from Yvonne's property. Whoever left that key-under-the-mat information didn't get it by accident, and I want to know how far their reach actually extends before I decide how worried to be.

I find the second camera an hour in, mounted low in a hollow oak with a clear sightline to the cabin's back porch. Professional mount, weatherproofed housing, the kind of equipment that costs real money and takes real planning to place. Not the work of some star-struck fan who followed a gossip blog to a rental listing.

I photograph it, leave it exactly where it sits so whoever's monitoring it doesn't know we've found them, and head back down the ridge already turning over how to tell Zoey without sending her spiraling.

She's on the porch when I arrive, coffee again, blanket again, though she looks steadier than she did yesterday. The new deadbolt seems to have bought her at least a little peace.

"You look like you're about to tell me something I won't like," she says, before I've even reached the steps.

"Found another camera. Different spot than I expected." I keep my voice level, the way I would deliver weather to a hiking group about to head into bad conditions. Facts first, panic later, if at all. "Whoever's watching this place is patient and well-funded. That's not nothing, but it's also not something we can't manage."

She sets her coffee down carefully, like she's afraid her hand might shake otherwise. "Manage how?"

"For one, you need to know this land better than they do. If something happens and you can't reach the cabin, you need to know where to go, what to avoid, how to move without leaving an obvious trail." I nod toward the trees. "I can teach you that. Today, if you're willing."

She studies me for a moment, weighing it, and I can see the exact instant she decides to trust me with this. "Okay," she says. "Teach me."

We start simple. I show her how to read the ridgeline against the position of the sun, how to identify the old deer trail that cuts a shortcut down to the county road without ever touching the exposed logging path. She's a quick study, asking the kind of questions that tell me she's actually thinking three steps ahead instead of just nodding along.

"What if it's raining," she asks, crouched beside me at a spot where the trail forks unmarked. "Does the moss thing still work?"

"Moss grows thicker on the north side regardless of weather. Rain just makes it easier to see." I point out the difference on the trunk beside us. "This one, north's obvious. Not all of them are this clean."

"You're very serious about moss."

"Moss keeps people from getting lost. I take it seriously."

"I can tell." There's a laugh underneath the words, the first real one I've heard from her, and it does something to my chest I don't examine too closely. "Do you take everything this seriously, or is it just wilderness survival?"

"Depends on the thing."

"Very informative."

"You didn't ask a very specific question."

That gets an actual laugh out of her, quick and surprised, like she wasn't expecting me to have that in me. And then, I'm laughing too, low and unfamiliar, a sound I don't think I've made in front of anyone outside the pack before.