Chapter 14
fourteen
Atlas dropped his nose to the trail and pulled, and Greta went with him.
The path climbed through ponderosa pines, their shadows running long and dark across the needle-soft ground. The light was going, and when the sun hit the ridge, it would drop into complete darkness. She could already see her breath when she exhaled.
Too cold.
C’mon, Logan, where are you?
Atlas moved at a steady trot, focused, not frantic. It meant he had a strong scent trail, which was a good sign.
Behind her, Bear crashed through the underbrush like… well, a bear. He’d occasionally cup his hands around his mouth and bellow, “Logan!”
Silence. Nothing but the echo of his own voice.
The trail bent, then steepened, and Bear fell further behind.
She pushed through a low branch and felt cold pine resin drag across her arm.
The sound of the highway had disappeared a quarter mile back, swallowed by elevation and trees, and now there was just her breathing and Atlas’s quiet movement and the wind working the tops of the pines above her in long, slow sighs.
She keyed her radio. “Bear, stay where you are. It’s getting too dark.”
Silence on the other end.
“Bear?” she tried again.
A crackle, then his voice, strained and tight. “Copy.”
She pressed the radio to her chest, letting Atlas lead her deeper into the trees. The forest floor was a patchwork of shadows now, the last of the light filtering through the pine canopy in thin golden spears that did little to illuminate the path.
Atlas’s pace changed. He slowed, his nose working more deliberately, his tail dropping slightly. He was closing in.
She followed, her heart hammering against her ribs. The temperature was dropping fast, and she pulled her jacket tighter around her neck. If Logan was out here without a coat...
“Come on, boy,” she whispered to Atlas. “Find him.”
The dog pulled her off the main trail, down a gentle slope thick with undergrowth. She ducked under low-hanging branches, wincing as pine needles scratched at her face. The radio at her hip crackled again.
“Anything?” Bear’s voice was barely recognizable, raw and stripped of its usual gruffness.
“Atlas is on something,” she answered. “Stay put.”
She couldn’t see the trail anymore, couldn’t even see the sky through the dense canopy. Just darkness and more darkness, with Atlas’s orange harness the only bright spot in her vision.
Then she saw a dark shape against a fallen log, huddled and still.
“Logan?” she called softly.
He had his knees drawn up, his forehead resting on them, and his hood pulled over his head. If he heard them coming, he gave no sign.
Atlas moved forward cautiously, his tail giving a small wag of recognition. The boy’s shoulders were hunched, his whole body curled in on itself like he was trying to disappear.
Greta approached, telegraphing her movements, and stopped a few feet away.
Atlas wiggled at her side, staring up, waiting for his treat for a job well done.
She reached into her pack and gave him his antler reward.
Her boy made a happy woo-woo-woo sound, his whole body wiggling, before settling down in a pile of leaves beside Logan with his bone between his front paws.
Logan didn’t move, didn’t acknowledge her or the dog. His shoulders were shaking—not from cold, she could tell. The kind of shaking that came from trying very hard not to cry.
Greta lowered herself onto the log beside him, leaving enough space between them that he wouldn’t feel crowded. Atlas stayed at his feet, chewing contentedly on his antler.
“I’m going to stay here for a minute,” she said, as if Logan had asked, then pulled her radio from her belt. “Bear?”
“Here.” His voice came back instantly, tight with strain, and Logan flinched at the sound of it.
“We found him. He’s okay.” She paused. “Give us a few minutes.”
Silence on the other end, then he muttered, “Copy.”
She set the radio in her lap and looked up at the darkening sky. The temperature was dropping fast now that the sun had disappeared behind the ridge. Logan’s thin, long-sleeved shirt wouldn’t be enough.
“I used to come out here when I was your age,” she said. “When things got too loud at home.”
Logan shifted slightly. He didn’t look up, but he was listening.
“My dad wasn’t a great dad,” she continued. “He was never meant to be a father, not to mention a twin dad. Especially after my mom left.” She watched her breath form clouds in the cold air. “He’d get this look in his eyes sometimes, like he was trying to figure out which of us was worth keeping.”
Atlas whined softly and nudged her hand with his wet nose. She scratched behind his ears.
“My sister, Alice, and I used to run away all the time. I liked to come out here into the woods. She preferred parties and hanging out with all the wrong people. One day, she went to one of those parties and never came back.”
She noticed Logan twisting a leather cord around on his wrist. “Did your mom give you that bracelet?”
“Yeah,” he muttered.
“Alice gave me one, too, right before she disappeared. I never take it off.” She pulled a flashlight off her vest and shone it at her wrist, where the bracelet glinted. It had been gold once, but the cheap plating hadn’t worn off a decade ago.
“Two interlocking hearts,” She said, and spun it so he could see them. “Alice had an identical one on when she disappeared.”
He didn’t lift his head.
“We had a fight the day she went missing. I told her she was going to get herself killed if she kept going to those parties. She told me to stop acting like her mother.” She let the flashlight beam drift to the ground between her boots.
“I told her she needed to grow up. She told me I needed to shut up.”
The leather cord on Logan’s wrist kept turning.
“That was the last thing she said to me. Shut up. And I’ve spent fifteen years wondering if I could have said something different.
If I could have gone with her that night.
If I could have—” She stopped. Her throat was thick, and she had to clear it before continuing.
“If I could stop whatever happened to her.”
“Logan’s shoulders had stilled. He wasn’t shaking anymore, just sitting very still with his head down. “I fought with my mom.”
Oh, honey, she thought, but said, “About what?”
“The last morning. Before her accident.” Logan’s voice came out muffled against his knees. “She was making breakfast. She always made breakfast, even when there was nothing in the fridge except eggs and bread.”
Greta waited. Atlas shifted at her feet, his antler forgotten as he watched Logan with concerned amber eyes.
“I asked her why she couldn’t just be normal,” Logan continued, the words spilling out now.
“Why we had to move every six months. Why we couldn’t have a dog.
Why we couldn’t have anything that lasted.
” His voice broke. “She was so mad when she went to work. If I hadn’t made her mad, maybe she wouldn’t have been distracted.
Maybe she’d have seen the stoplight turn red. ”
“Logan,” she said and waited.
And waited.
Finally, he lifted his head and met her gaze with red-rimmed eyes.
“You’re not responsible for what happened to her. It was an accident.”
He shook his head and buried his face back in his knees.
“Listen, I know you feel guilty. And it’s valid to feel that way.
Hell, I’ve been looking for Alice for fifteen years because I felt guilty for fighting with her.
I built my whole life around it. My shop.
The SAR work. Atlas.” She reached down and scratched Atlas’s ear.
“All of it was built on guilt and the hope that I can find her. But you know what I’ve only just started learning?
That guilt is exhausting. It sucks the life out of you, and your mom wouldn’t want that for you. ”
Logan wiped his face with the back of his hand, smearing tears and snot. “She wouldn’t want me living with him either.”
“With Bear?”
He nodded, his jaw tight.
“You know, your dad—”
“He’s not my dad.” Logan’s voice cracked. “He’s just some guy who knocked up my mom and then went to prison and left us alone.”
She let that sit for a beat. “Can I tell you something about your father that you might not know?”
Logan’s shoulders tensed. He didn’t answer, but he didn’t tell her to stop either.
“Dane McKenna is the kindest, most patient man I’ve ever met.
And I’ve met a lot of men. I’ve watched him work with horses that everyone else had given up on.
I’ve seen him sit with men who’ve done terrible things and find the humanity in them that nobody else could see.
And he’s been beating himself up over you for twelve years, Logan. Every single day.”
Logan’s shoulders slumped further. “He doesn’t know me.”
“That’s true,” she admitted. “He doesn’t. But he wants to. More than anything.”
The darkness had settled completely now, and the cold was biting through her jacket. Logan’s teeth were chattering, his arms wrapped tight around himself. She pulled her emergency blanket from her pack and draped it around his shoulders.
“He’s waiting—”
“Okay. We can sit here a bit longer.” She looked up at the sky through the canopy of pines. Stars were beginning to dot the sky overhead. She always loved the Montana sky at night.
“This morning,” she said, still staring up, “my best friend brought me a photo from a security camera at a bus station in Spokane. A woman who might be Alice. I don’t know yet if it’s her.
I’ve been wrong before. A lot.” She looked out at the trees.
“I don’t know which one I’m more afraid of.
Being wrong—which means she’s still missing, and I’m back at zero.
Or being right—which means she’s been somewhere out there for fifteen years and never called.
” She stopped. “I haven’t told Bear about that photo, or that I’m going to Spokane in the morning to find the woman. ”
Logan lifted his head. “Why not?”
“Because he’d want to go with me, and he needs to stay here with you. And he’d feel like he’s failing both of us.”
Logan was quiet for a long moment, staring at his hands wrapped in the emergency blanket. “That’s messed up.”
“Yeah,” she agreed. “It is. But your dad has a big heart, and he hates letting down the people he cares about. So maybe you can give him a chance?”
He put his face back down on his knees, but his shoulders had relaxed.
She gave it another minute. Then she said, “I’m sorry about your mom. I mean that.”
The wind moved.
“And I’m sorry about the porch,” she said.
“I’m sorry you found out the way you did—from Kolby Roberts, of all the ways.
That was careless, and you didn’t deserve it.
” She kept her voice even. “But I’m not sorry about kissing your dad.
I like him a lot. I think you might like him, too, if you let him in. ”
He didn’t react. She hadn’t expected him to.
The silence stretched long enough that she started to think he might stay on the log all night, and she was working out how to handle that—whether to push, whether to wait him out, whether to go back down and get Bear and let the two of them figure it out between them—when Logan’s voice came, very small, with his face still on his knees.
“I want my dad.”