Chapter 7
RHYS
Iwake to wind screaming against the cabin walls and the memory of Harlow Kane's mouth on mine.
The couch where I slept feels harder than usual. My back aches. But the discomfort isn't what kept me awake. It's the memory replaying on loop. Her pulling back. The ring in my pocket pressing between us like Emma's ghost refusing to let go.
Gray light filters through the windows. Dawn, maybe. Hard to tell with the storm. I sit up, scrub my hands over my face, and feel the beard that needs attention. The beard Harlow's fingers might have touched last night if we hadn't stopped.
The bedroom door opens. She emerges wearing the same clothes from yesterday, hair loose around her shoulders instead of pulled back. Different. Softer. But her eyes are wary.
"Morning," she says.
"Morning." I stand, needing something to do with my hands. "Coffee?"
"Please."
We move around each other in the small kitchen like we're dancing. Careful not to touch. Careful not to get too close. The ease from last night is gone, replaced by this awkward awareness of what almost happened.
I pump water. Measure coffee grounds. Light the propane burner. All automatic movements while my brain spins through what I should say. Should I apologize? Acknowledge it? Pretend it didn't happen?
"About last night," Harlow starts.
"We don't have to talk about it."
"I think we do." She leans against the counter, arms crossed. "That kiss happened. We can't just ignore it."
"What do you want me to say?"
"I don't know. Maybe that you feel it too. This thing between us." Her eyes meet mine. Direct. No games. "Or maybe that I'm reading it wrong and you were just looking for comfort."
The coffee starts to percolate. I watch it rather than her because looking at her makes it harder to think straight.
"You're not reading it wrong," I say finally. "I feel it. Have since the first time in that equipment shed. You looking like you could take on the world and win."
"I pulled back last night because of Emma's ring." Her voice is quiet. "I felt it in your pocket. And I realized you're still carrying her with you everywhere. That maybe you weren't ready for this."
"The ring." I grip my coffee cup tighter. "Yeah. I carry it. Have for three years. Can't seem to let it go."
"I don't expect you to let her go, Rhys. She was your wife. You loved her." Harlow meets my eyes. "But I need to know if that ring is a wall between us or just a memory you're not ready to put down yet."
"I don't know," I admit. "I thought it was just grief. Just me holding onto her because I failed to protect her. But maybe it's fear too. Fear that if I move forward, I'm admitting she's really gone."
"I understand that." She takes a sip of her coffee.
"Baker died because I made the wrong call.
Logically, I know the review board cleared me.
I know it was a ricochet, a freak accident, one of those things that happens in the field.
But every morning I wake up knowing he's dead and I'm not, and logic doesn't fix that. "
We drink our coffee in silence. The storm batters the cabin. Snow piles against the windows in drifts. We're completely cut off out here. Just us and the weather and the ghosts we carry.
"I want to show you something," I hear myself say. "If you're willing."
"What?"
"My files on Emma. Everything I've gathered over three years. Every dead end, every person who stonewalled me, every piece of evidence that doesn't add up." I set my cup down. "You have FBI training. Maybe you'll see something I missed."
Understanding crosses her face. "You're asking for my help."
"I'm asking you to look at it with fresh eyes. Professional eyes." I move to the bedroom, pull the box from under the bed where I keep it hidden. "And maybe I'm trusting you with something I haven't shown anyone else."
The box is heavy. Three years of obsession made physical. I carry it to the table, set it down between us.
Harlow doesn't say anything. Just watches as I open it and start pulling out files.
Accident reports. Photos of the crash site. Emma's medical records. Witness statements. My own notes, pages and pages of them. Maps marking where she drove, where the accident happened, where the black truck might have come from.
"Start here." I hand her the official report. "Brake line failure. That's what they ruled. But I handled all our vehicle maintenance. Changed the brake fluid myself six months before she died. Those lines were solid."
Harlow reads, her expression shifting from neutral to focused. The FBI agent emerging. "Who investigated?"
"State police initially. Then it got kicked to a federal task force that never filed a final report."
"A federal task force for a single-vehicle accident in rural Alaska?" Her eyes narrow. "That's unusual."
"That's what I said. Got told to stop asking questions. Got warned off by people who shouldn't care about a dead nurse in Whitewater Junction."
She flips through more pages, making notes on a pad I didn't realize I'd set out. Her handwriting is neat, organized. The kind of person who thinks in systems and patterns.
"Your wife was a nurse at Palmer Hospital," she muses. "Night shifts. Long commute on mountain roads."
"Five days a week. Same route every time."
"Which means anyone watching would know her schedule. Know exactly when and where she'd be vulnerable." Harlow pulls out the map, studies it. "The accident happened here. Mountain Pass Road."
"Same route she always took home."
"And you didn't know anything was wrong until dispatch called you about the accident."
"Right. Two forty-seven a.m. I thought she was safe at work." The memory burns. "But when I got to her, before she died, she told me it wasn't an accident. That a black truck forced her off the road."
Harlow goes still. "Her last words."
"Her last words. She died before she could tell me anything else.
" The words taste bitter. Three years and they still taste bitter.
"But about a month before she died, the hospital had admitted several patients from an industrial accident.
Foreign workers, according to the records.
Injuries consistent with labor accidents. "
"You think they were trafficking victims."
"I think Emma treated them. I think she noticed injuries that didn't match the official story.
And I think she started asking questions.
" I pull out another file. "Three weeks after Emma died, one of the doctors who worked with her transferred to a hospital in Seattle.
Sudden. No explanation. I tried to contact him. Got nowhere."
"Name?"
"Dr. Peter Kovak."
She writes it down. "What about the black truck Emma mentioned? Did anyone ever find it?"
"No. And here's the thing." I spread out photos of the crash site. "The marks on the road suggest another vehicle forced her off. But those marks were gone by the time the state police photographed the scene. Someone cleaned up before the investigation."
"Someone with access and resources."
"Someone who could take out a sheriff's wife and make it look like an accident so that even three years later, I still can't prove it wasn't."
Harlow looks at me. Really looks. And I see recognition there. Understanding. She knows what it's like to carry this weight.
"The trafficking network you've been investigating," she says slowly. "It uses mining operations as fronts. But hospitals would be perfect too. Treat injured victims, create fake medical records, move people through the system disguised as legitimate patients."
"That's what I've been thinking. But I can't prove it."
"Maybe we can now." She taps the files. "Irina said the camp has been operating for years. Your wife died three years ago. That's a timeline that connects. And if Emma photographed evidence or documented what she saw, that evidence might still exist."
"I searched our house. Her car. Her locker at work. Found nothing."
"Where did she keep her phone?"
"They never recovered it from the wreck. Assumed it was destroyed."
Harlow's quiet for a long moment. Then: "What if it wasn't in the car? What if she hid it somewhere before they forced her off the road?"
The possibility hits like a fist. Three years I've been searching and it never occurred to me that Emma might have known she was in danger. That she might have hidden evidence before they killed her.
"She would have needed somewhere safe," I say. "Somewhere they wouldn't think to look."
"Somewhere you would eventually find it."
We stare at each other across the table covered in three years of failure. And for the first time since Emma died, I feel something that might be hope.
The lights flicker. Once. Twice. Then steady.
"Generator's running low," I say. "We need to conserve power."
"How long until the storm breaks?"
I check the satellite phone. Weather update shows another eighteen hours minimum. "We're stuck until tomorrow at least."
"Then we should shut down everything non-essential. Keep warm, keep the phone charged, save fuel for when we actually need it."
Practical. Smart. But shutting down the generator means no lights except what the battery bank provides. No heat except the wood stove. Closer quarters. More intimacy.
I make the call anyway. We need to survive this storm before we can save anyone else.
The cabin goes quieter when the generator cuts off. Just the wind and the fire and us.
"I should probably do something about this," I say, gesturing to my beard and running a hand through my too-long hair. "Been meaning to trim both for months."
Harlow's expression shifts. Something warmer. "I could help. I used to cut Baker's hair. I'm good at it."
The offer surprises me. "You don't have to."
"I want to." She moves to the kitchen, finds the scissors I keep in a drawer. "Sit."
I pull a chair away from the table, sit. She comes to stand in front of me, scissors in hand. The positioning puts her between my knees, close enough that I catch her scent. Clean soap and winter air.