CHAPTER ONE
Katie Winter scrambled over the rocky trail. The stones felt hard and unforgiving under her boots. Weeds and shrubs tangled over the faint pathway. Her breath clouded in the chilly air, and the skies were as gray as a grave.
The area was remote, mountainous, and harsh. But as she trod the slippery path, hope flared in her heart that it might lead her to her sister.
Was this where Josie had been taken, after her tragic disappearance sixteen years ago? Was she even still alive, and was there the faintest hope that Katie might find her?
"I'm here for you. I'm on my way," she said to herself, wondering if her twin could sense her frantic determination to find her. "I never gave up on you, Josie. Ever. If you're here, I'll get to you. I'm just sorry it took me so long."
The harsh terrain she was hiking through was a few miles south of the U.S.-Canada border, in one of the wildest areas of New York State. The closest small town was a tiny hamlet named Clare.
The day was overcast and although not snowy, the weather was unpleasant for early spring. Cold rain was falling, lifting only briefly to lighten the heavy gloom. Katie wiped it away from her face, pulling her jacket's hood over her head, even though her shoulder-length, brown hair was already drenched.
"I had to track him down," she said aloud to her twin, through numb lips. "It wasn't easy. We didn't know what had happened. Our parents didn't want to know, and I wasn't able to find out. My first lead came from a convicted killer, Josie, can you believe it? He was the one who told me he'd seen Gabriel Rath approaching you, while you were unconscious on the riverbank after your kayak capsized. Nobody else saw or suspected Gabriel at the time. Everyone thought Everton, the killer, had murdered you. But then, I couldn't find Gabriel. That took longer than I thought it would."
But at last she had done it. She'd gotten the lead she was hoping for. The one she hoped might take her to the strange, bearded man who had been on the riverbank at the time of Josie's kayaking accident.
Gabriel Rath had not been seen in town after that incident. Nobody knew where he'd gone, apart from one person. His ex-landlady, Mrs. Ingham. She’d been one of the chattiest people in town, as well as the nosiest. She had found out from her tenant that he planned to move elsewhere sometime. That conversation must have happened long before he had the opportunity to take Josie.
But Mrs. Ingham was no longer living in town when Katie had followed that lead; she was with her extended family off the grid. Katie had to wait for impatient weeks until she came back into town.
Then, finally, she'd received the call she had been waiting and hoping for. But it had not given her precise information.
Mrs. Ingham hadn't known the details. She'd racked her brains for the memories of long ago, and told Katie that as far as she recalled, he'd said he was building a cabin about twenty miles to the west of Clare, and that he was going to move there when he was ready. It was very remote, he'd told her. Very isolated, with nobody else around. He was starting a new life there when his cabin was built, he'd said.
Katie knew why he’d made the decision to leave when he did. She was sure she knew why.
Because he'd taken Josie. He had a captured woman. He was holding her prisoner, stealing her life.
A few months before he’d taken Josie, Gabriel Rath had sent Mrs. Ingham a picture which she'd showed to Katie. A small, partially constructed cabin hidden in a copse of tall pine trees, bordering a narrow creek.
Katie had stared at that picture for hours when Mrs. Ingham had forwarded it to her, etching the scene into her mind.
Then, using a map and her best navigation ability, Katie had located the approximate coordinates where this cabin must be.
And now, as she scrambled over the dangerous terrain, she hoped she’d find it.
The land was steep, and it hadn't been maintained. There were no hiking trails through the area. It was exactly the kind of place where somebody like Gabriel Rath would hide away. Rough, treacherous terrain. Harsh and unforgiving. Nobody to hear if Josie screamed. A hand-built place where he could keep her locked away.
Or so Katie imagined.
She knew she had to be prepared for the fact that her sister had succumbed to her injuries at the time, and that Gabriel Rath had fled with nothing more than a chilly corpse for company.
Or that she'd died since then. Murdered by him, or injured while trying to escape him. Katie knew Josie would not have accepted her fate. Not her twin. Even at sixteen, she would have had the strength and the smarts to try to flee him.
But if she'd gotten away alive, she would have come home. Katie didn't doubt that. Josie hadn't, and that meant, perhaps, she was still there. Unable to escape, but still planning, still fighting, still hoping.
Katie hoped the search would lead to her sister, that the trail wouldn't go cold. She had to trust in her map reading and calculations to be sure she was on the right track.
Rough stones slipped beneath her feet. Her ankles turned on the sharp edges of the rocks, forcing her to curb her impatience and step carefully. She was grateful, at least, that the rain was light, and not coming down in sheets.
She checked her map and the GPS again, doing the calculations, feeling a twinge of anxiety, because by now she should have seen it. There was only one creek in the area. It was wider than it had looked in the photo but Katie guessed that was because it was swollen by the spring rains.
But the cabin should be here. It should be within sight by now.
Katie frowned.
She’d reached the only copse of wood in the rugged, mountainous area. The only place that resembled the photo she'd seen.
The mountains stretched ahead, stark and rocky. Far too rugged to support even a log cabin. And there was no sign of the rough, wooden dwelling she’d hoped to find.
Katie felt a sense of unreality, as if a dream had morphed into a nightmare. The rain felt wet and cold on her face as she stared at the place where the cabin should have been.
Had it been there once? Had Gabriel moved? Had he taken his prisoner and gone elsewhere?
If so, she would never find him. This was the only link to him, the friendly landlady who had asked about his planned location so long ago, taken an interest, looked at photos, and remembered. If he'd moved again, nobody would ever know where, and perhaps that had been his plan. To disappear completely.
Or perhaps the cabin had been destroyed. A fire, a flood, a lightning strike. Perhaps Gabriel had died. Katie felt the weight of the world on her shoulders as she stared at the empty terrain ahead, where no trace of the building remained.
"Josie. Josie! How could this have happened to you? Why did I think I'd be able to save you?" she whispered.
Tears pricked at her eyes; the disappointment was a crushing weight in her heart. The realization of how close she'd been, ...
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