ChapterOne
Olympic National Park, Washington
January
Adrenaline flooded Audrey Kendrick’s system as the SUV slid toward the edge of the road. Black ice. The invisible, treacherous patches were the reason this winding road through the Olympic foothills was closed to park visitors in winter. For long stretches of roadway, there was no shoulder, just a steep drop dotted with evergreens that clung to the slope. If she went over the edge, thick, old-growth trunks would break her fall, but the damage could still be deadly.
She turned into the skid. Tires gripped pavement, and the vehicle veered back into the center of the road, saving her from slipping off the side.
She tapped the brakes as shaking hands held the steering wheel in a white-knuckled grip. Her heart pounded at a rate that couldn’t be healthy. The SUV slowed, and she took a deep breath to calm herself. She needed to focus on the pavement ahead and not what she’d find at the end of it.
At least with the road closed to all but park employees and inholding landowners, she didn’t have to worry about other cars. She could take this calming break without fear she’d cause an accident if a vehicle careened around the curves in either direction.
A roadside mile marker sank her already dark mood even deeper. She was only eight miles from the gate that closed the road in winter months. She had ten more slick and twisty miles to go before she would reach Lake Olympus Lodge.
She wished she could have waited at the gate for law enforcement park ranger Jae-jin Son, but according to the dispatcher, Jae was stuck at Mora Campground, dealing with visitors who thought park rules were for other people. She didn’t have time to wait. As it was, she’d be lucky to have thirty minutes of daylight to inspect the site before nightfall and the predicted storm rolled in.
Her belly was cramped tight with fear, an unpleasant accompaniment to her racing heart. Had the site been looted again? Why hadn’t George called her back?
A little more than an hour ago, she’d been at the Forks Ranger Station, planning a spring break archaeology camp for tweens and teens with an interpretation park ranger, when she got a call from headquarters informing her the cameras she’d set up to protect the archaeological site had stopped transmitting.
She’d installed the cameras herself in November, after the site had been looted and tribal elder George Shaw had looked at her with such disappointment. The memory of his words still cut straight to her heart. “I recommended you as Roy’s replacement when he retired as park archaeologist. I trusted you to protect our sacred sites. Maybe this time the looting isn’t your fault, but if it happens again, it will be.”
George took the desecration personally, and she, as the person entrusted to protect all cultural resources within Olympic National Park, had failed him and the tribe. She’d installed the cameras within days. They couldn’t stop looting, but they could alert her department when it happened.
And now the cameras weren’t working.
According to headquarters, the lodge had electricity. This wasn’t a simple power outage. Meaning this could be her worst-case scenario: looters had cut the line before digging up the site.
Her first call had been to George, who had an inholding cabin near the ancestral village. George was one of the few people who wintered near the lodge, and with the forecasted storm, he’d be settled in for the next few days, ready to ride out the wind and rain, the worst of which would hit this evening. But the elder hadn’t answered her call or responded to her messages.
From the moment she couldn’t reach George, her fear had shifted from the archaeological site to George himself. What if he’d seen the looters and confronted them? Looters sometimes turned violent when caught in the act. She couldn’t simply wait by the gate for Jae as the dispatcher had instructed. She had to check on the site and George.
She picked up her phone from the center console to check for messages. No bars. Expected, but no less frustrating. This was one of the park’s many dead zones for cellular coverage. She wouldn’t be in call range until she reached the lodge complex, which, in addition to having cellular antennas for two providers, also had the latest, greatest satellite Wi-Fi.
Jae might be angry when he learned she hadn’t waited for him to make this trek, but with a winter storm rolling in tonight, the heavy rain would freeze on the pavement. Tomorrow, this road would be an endless slick of black ice, far worse than it was today. It would be days before she made it back out here, and by the time she did, the storm could have washed away evidence that might identify the looters. If she found anything at the site, she had all the tools she needed to photograph, map, record, and collect it like a forensic investigator. CSI and archaeologists shared a lot of the same methodology.
She put the SUV in Drive again and inched forward, skittish about finding more black ice. The headlights cut through the dark curves, but ice remained impossible to see. She touched her hand to her belly, then returned it to the wheel. She dropped her speed by five miles per hour. Slow and cautious.
Her fingers ached from their tight grip on the steering wheel, but the SUV remained steady on the shadowed, winding road. In the summer, this road would be dappled with sunshine and flowers. She touched her belly again, thinking about what the road would look like in late July. The wind would ease in from the ocean, keeping the air fresh and cool even on the hottest of days.
In July, the days would be long. The sun would shine. And everything about her life would change.
At last, thirty minutes after nearly sliding off the road, she rounded the bend and the magnificent old Lake Olympus Lodge spread out before her. Built in the 1920s, the hotel embraced the lake with wide arms. In the summer, it would be full of guests, all enjoying the most magnificent of US National Parks. Today, however, the entire complex—store, museum, gas station, maintenance shops, annex guest cabins, and of course, the massive main lodge—was cold and silent. Abandoned and forlorn.
Even after the stressful drive, Audrey couldn’t look at the lodge without thinking of Xavier. It was a mixed bag of emotions. Part of her was glad she would never forget the surprising, intense, hot night spent in this very lodge. There’d been a magic she wanted to hold on to. But now that perfect night was tainted with betrayal.
Xavier had been an old friend of Jae’s, which should have made him trustworthy. Attraction had flared, hot and bright, probably blinding her.
He’d been handsome, sure, but it was his energy that spoke to her. Like her, he was an avid outdoor enthusiast. Plus, he’d been charming and funny and made her feel desirable after a breakup a year before that had left her questioning her choices.
Still, she’d accepted the no-strings fling for what it was, even if she did want more. There was no real future for them. She lived on the Olympic Peninsula and was only a year into her tenure at the job she’d wanted since she was eleven, and he lived…she didn’t even know where he lived. At the time, she’d assumed he was still in the Bay Area, near where he’d grown up with Jae.
They hadn’t exchanged phone numbers. He’d made it clear from the start that one night was all they’d have. As they said goodbye, it had stung, but she’d accepted it.
But then the home test stick indicated she was pregnant.
She’d been shocked. And elated. At thirty-eight, she was all too aware her biological clock was winding down. She hadn’t planned this pregnancy, and they’d used condoms to prevent it—apparently, expiration dates mattered—but she was glad neither of them had bothered to check the wrapper in the heat of the moment. She was thankful for the wild, impulsive night with Xavier.