Chapter 54
Maggie’s injured ankle was throbbing hotly, the skin swollen and puffy to the touch.
The woodstove kicked out a thick, dry heat. The air had become heavy with the smell of unwashed bodies and damp socks. The cabin felt claustrophobic with its cramped space, candlelight creating shadows where she needed light.
All she wanted was to be at home with her daughter. She imagined the warmth of Phoebe in her arms, the soft weight of her, the smell of her neck, the perfect smoothness of her cheek.
Tears threatened at her lower lids. She looked up at the ceiling, blinking them back.
There was a clatter as Erik snatched the pan off the hob and carried it to the small table, the wooden spindles of a chair complaining as he slumped down. He spooned forkfuls of meat into his mouth, an elbow on the table. He ate hurriedly, as if it had been a long time since he’d had a meal.
Joni, who’d moved to the table, picked up the logbook. “You’ve been up at the DNT cabin before?”
He answered with a faint nod of his head.
“You stayed this time last year.”
Erik turned slowly, eyes falling on the logbook and then lifting to Joni. “That’s right.”
“You were here with Karin, it says.”
He put down his fork. Glared at Joni. “Karin was my girlfriend.”
Maggie noted the use of was.
As he raised his fork again, Erik suddenly froze. His eyes widened, while the rest of his face fell completely still.
He was staring at something at the far end of the table.
Maggie turned to follow his gaze and realized with a lurch what he’d seen. She had left Karin’s bracelet on the table.
Erik pushed his dinner aside and, slowly, reached out a hand and drew the bracelet across the table toward him.
He angled it toward the candlelight, and Maggie watched the way his brow furrowed. He blinked again, a hand running over the back of his skull, massaging the place where the tattoo of the black mountains was inked to his neck.
He stood up, his knee knocking the table, candlelight wavering. The color in Erik’s face had drained away. He swung around, eyes shining. “Where has this come from?”
Maggie looked at the others.
No one spoke.
“Where!” he demanded with such aggression that they all jumped.
“I gave this to Karin! Right here! In the DNT cabin! I put it on her wrist. She went to sleep wearing the bracelet!” He squeezed a hand to his brow.
“The police searched the cabin. There was nothing of hers left behind. Nothing!” Erik glared at them. “One of you put it here, didn’t you?”
Maggie shook her head. “No! I found it.”
He took a lurching step toward her. “Where? Tell me where you found it!”
“It was last night. We camped at the beach. It was in the cave.”
Erik’s eyes widened.
As soon as she’d said it, she realized her mistake.
—
A hot flush of panic swept through Maggie: she’d given away their whereabouts.
“The cave?” Erik repeated, blinking.
Slowly, she nodded.
“But . . . Karin never went to the cave. We were up here. In the DNT. We were going to hike out the next day, down Blafjell, back to the lodge . . . I don’t understand . . . How could it be there?”
He’d begun to pace, his footsteps hurried.
He stopped by Maggie. His voice was quieter. “Tell me how you found it?”
She felt herself leaning away from him, her chair creaking. “It was caught on a ledge. Covered in cobwebs. I think it’d been there awhile.”
“Was there anything else in the cave?”
She glanced down at her lap. Shook her head.
He eyed her narrowly. “You are certain?”
Helena stepped forward, voice authoritative as she said, “Yes. We were all there. We checked the cave. There was nothing else, just some lobster pots stored there.” There was something provocative in her tone, as if she were testing him.
Erik gave no reaction to the remark, simply lowered his head, looking again at the bracelet, transfixed.
“What happened to Karin?” Maggie asked. “You called me by her name when we were in the woods.”
He looked anguished, his mouth peeling back over his teeth. “She disappeared.”
He slumped down in a chair, running the bracelet across his palm.
“We came out here for Karin’s birthday. It is today.
She should be twenty-six,” he said, head lowered, shoulders rounded.
“The bracelet was my birthday gift. We spent the night here and were supposed to hike out the next day. But . . . we argued.”
“About what?” Helena asked.
He bunched his lips toward his nose as if the memory was painful.
“About nothing that mattered.” He dragged the heel of his hand across his chest, then said, “Karin told me she’d applied for a job in Bergen.
She loved art—and there was a brilliant gallery there where a job came up.
I should have told her to accept it. But I got scared.
Said it was selfish, leaving.” He shook his head.
“I got angry. Walked out. Pounded the trails for a while. When I finally cooled off and came back here, Karin had packed up and gone.”
Into his silence, the wind funneled into the flue of the woodstove, making the flames dance.
“I thought she’d walked back to the lodge—but she never turned up. No one knows why not. She just . . . disappeared.”
“No one saw her again?”
“There was a sighting . . . it gave us hope for a time . . . but it was nothing.”
A log in the fire disintegrated, red embers resettling.
“I’m sorry,” Maggie said quietly.
“Me too,” Erik said, closing his fingers around the delicate silver bracelet, sealing it within his fist.