Chapter 14
The Cabin — Back Ridge
The door creaked open.
Caitlin stepped in first—and stopped so abruptly Izzy nearly ran into her.
“Oh my God…”
It wasn’t quite awe. It was shock. Real, unfiltered, curator-level shock.
Caitlin moved slowly into the room, turning in a slow circle, her eyes catching on everything at once. The canvases. The sketches. The walls.
“Iz,” she said, not even looking at her now. “What in the world have you found?”
Izzy smiled a little, watching it hit her exactly the way it had hit her the first time.
“I told you,” she said. “It’s incredible.”
“Incredible?” Caitlin let out a soft, disbelieving laugh. “This isn’t incredible—this is—”
She broke off, already moving toward the nearest canvas. Her hand hovered short of touching it.
“This is museum-level,” she said quietly. “This isn’t hobby work. This isn’t local gallery work. This is—”
She leaned in slightly.
“Who is this?”
Izzy stepped closer.
“C. Vale,” she said.
Caitlin straightened.
“C. Vale,” she repeated. “Who is C. Vale?”
“That’s what I want to know.”
Caitlin moved to the next piece. Then the next. Faster now. Eyes sharper. Mind working.
“The composition…” she murmured. “The restraint, the control—”
She paused, tilting her head.
“This feels like Thorne,” she said slowly. “Or someone trained like him.”
Izzy nodded. “I thought so too. But it’s not.”
Caitlin glanced back at her. “You checked?”
“I checked.”
Caitlin turned back to the work, even more focused now.
“Then who the hell is she?”
She moved deeper into the room, her voice dropping again, reverent.
“Iz… this isn’t just good,” she said. “This is… a body of work.”
She eased back a step, gaze sweeping the room.
“This is someone’s life.”
Izzy’s attention drifted past the paintings. That was Caitlin’s world.
Instead, she moved toward the back of the room. The small bed tucked against the wall. The quilt faded, one corner turned down like someone had left it that way and never come back to fix it.
It didn’t look staged. It looked… abandoned.
Izzy hesitated. Then reached down and lifted the pillow.
Something slid. Paper. Soft. Worn.
“Cate,” she said quietly.
“Mm-hm?” Caitlin answered, still studying a canvas.
Izzy unfolded the sheet carefully.
“I think you need to see this.”
That got her.
Caitlin crossed the room quickly.
“What is it?”
Izzy handed it over.
Caitlin’s eyes moved across the page.
The room stilled.
Then—
“Oh…”
She read it again. Slower.
Dear Sam, I don’t know how to say this the right way, so I’m just going to say it.
When you came for me today—when you didn’t hesitate, didn’t even think twice— I have never felt anything like that.
You don’t say much. I know that. But I saw it anyway.
The way you looked at me. Like I mattered.
Like I wasn’t passing through. And for the first time since I got here…
I didn’t feel temporary. I felt like I might belong somewhere.
I don’t know what we’re doing, or what this is supposed to be.
But I know I don’t want to leave it behind. —C
Caitlin lowered the letter slowly, her expression softer now. Grounded in something real.
“That’s…” She exhaled. “That girl was in love with him.”
Izzy shook her head. “No.”
A quiet settled between them.
Caitlin looked around again—but everything had shifted now.
The paintings weren’t just beautiful. They belonged to someone.
Someone who had lived here. Clothes folded in a corner. A cup left on the table. Dishes stacked like they’d be used again.
A life paused.
“And she… left all of this?” Caitlin said, lower now.
Izzy didn’t answer right away. Standing there, it didn’t feel like someone who had packed up and moved on. It felt like someone who had stepped out—and never made it back.
“I don’t buy that,” Caitlin said.
Izzy nodded. “Me neither.”
Caitlin turned slowly, taking it in again—this time not as a curator, but as someone trying to make sense of it.
“You don’t leave this behind,” she said. “Not if you have a choice.”
Her eyes came back to Izzy.
“So what happened to her?”
Izzy exhaled slowly.
“That’s exactly what I want to know.”
The weight between them deepened.
Caitlin looked down at the letter, then back at the room.
“She loved someone here,” she said. “She was building something here.”
Somewhere outside, wind brushed softly through the trees.
“And then she’s… gone?”
Izzy shook her head.
“No,” she said. “That doesn’t feel right.”
Caitlin handed the letter back carefully.
Izzy folded it along the same worn crease and slipped it into her jacket pocket.
They stood there a moment longer.
Then—
“We can’t leave this up here,” Caitlin said.
Izzy nodded immediately. “No.”
Caitlin turned in a slow circle.
“All of this needs to come down,” she said. “Somewhere we can actually see it. Lay it out. Go through it piece by piece.”
“The barn,” Izzy said. “The big table—we can spread everything out.”
“Exactly.”
A heartbeat passed.
Caitlin’s expression shifted—decision settling in.
“And I’m calling Burke.”
Izzy glanced at her. “Already?”
Caitlin didn’t hesitate.
“Yes.”
She gestured around the room.
“Because this isn’t just someone passing through. Not with this.”
A small nod toward Izzy’s pocket.
“And not with that.”
Izzy leaned back, crossing her arms.
“You think something happened to her.”
Caitlin met her eyes.
“I think we don’t know what happened to her,” she said. “And I’m not okay with that.”
She looked once more at the cabin—the paintings, the bed, the life that had been left behind.
“Burke can run her name,” she added. “Find out if there’s anything on record. Where she went. If she’s… anywhere.”
Izzy was quiet.
“Yeah,” she said.
Standing in that room, it didn’t feel like a story that had an ending. It felt like one that had been cut off.
“And if there’s not?” Izzy asked quietly.
Caitlin’s gaze moved once more over the cabin—the paintings, the bed, the life that had been left behind.
“Then we find out ourselves.”
Izzy nodded once.
“Okay.”
And like that—this wasn’t just a discovery anymore.
It was something they weren’t going to let go.