Hounding Honor (H.A.V.E.N. Hidden Ally Vigilante Extraction Network #13)

1. Cold Ground

Cold Ground

Steve

The cold hits the second Jan and I step out of the four-wheel drive.

“Fuck me!”

Jan pulls her scarf higher over her face. “Still hoping I like skiing, darlin’?”

I glance at her. “Thought you preferred snowboarding.”

“I do.”

Jax climbs out behind us and looks around. “Yeah, it’s a bit fresh.”

I stare at him. “A bit fresh? It’s minus twenty-four fucking degrees!”

“Girls’ blouse,” Angus mutters.

I turn. “What was that?”

“Nothing.”

Jax chuckles as he heads around the SUV.

Bloody Canucks.

At least that gets a smile out of all of us.

Yesterday we were at MacLeod House beside Loch Lomond. Today we’re standing beside a frozen lake in northern Manitoba with Angus and Jax, surrounded by more snow than I’ve seen in years and a missing woman’s file that should’ve had the RCMP tearing this region apart.

Cole and Liberty stayed behind in Scotland with Amity and Declan, protecting Jan’s parents, Tania, Robert and the eight women rescued in London. Dr. Josh is still there too, supporting the women while they settle into MacLeod House.

I wasn’t keen on leaving Jan’s family while the Legacy Initiative still has them in its sights, but bringing everyone to Canada wouldn’t have worked.

This is where we need to be. Not them.

We flew from Scotland aboard Blackstone’s Learjet and landed at a small regional airport, where the winter-equipped SUV Serenity arranged was waiting.

She’d made sure it was already stocked with emergency blankets, cold-weather survival gear, food, water and everything else we might need if the weather turns against us.

Jax still checks it before we leave. He’s Canadian, and his years as a Ranger included operations in this kind of country. If anyone knows what northern winter can throw at us, it’s him.

I haven’t had any experience in these conditions.

When the bloke with experience starts preparing for the possibility of being stranded in temperatures that can kill you, I’ll pay attention.

At least the bloody bears should be hibernating.

The farther north we drive, the smaller the towns become until houses, fuel stops and mobile reception all but disappear. Lucky Serenity packed satellite phones. Beyond the road, forest stretches toward the horizon between frozen lakes and vast expanses of white.

Jan comes around the front of the vehicle with Honor St. John’s file open on her tablet.

Twenty-five years old. Indigenous rights activist and community organizer. She’s spent months documenting women who disappeared around Lockhart Mining operations, interviewing families and comparing dates against active and abandoned mining sites.

Eleven days ago, she vanished too.

Her grandmother reported her missing that night.

The RCMP waited forty-eight hours before sending anyone out.

Their search lasted less than a day.

Pathetic.

Honor’s vehicle was found beside an access road leading toward Lockhart property. Locked. Phone gone. Camera gone. Notebook gone.

Her winter coat was still inside.

That detail has been bothering me since Scotland.

You don’t voluntarily walk away from your coat in this weather.

Angus shuts the rear hatch and joins us. “Still think this should’ve triggered a major search.”

“Should’ve triggered one immediately,” Jan says.

“Instead, they did sweet fuck-all,” I mutter.

Jax stands near the edge of the lake, studying the dark forest on the other side. He’s been watching the country since we left the airport, reading things in the terrain I wouldn’t know to look for yet.

“This is what I was talking about in Scotland,” he says. “Winter changes everything up here. Roads disappear beneath snow. Weather grounds aircraft. Engines freeze. A place that looks twenty kilometers away on a map might take hours to reach if there’s no usable road.”

Angus looks across the lake. “And if Honor’s somewhere out there?”

“We make damn sure we know how we’re getting back before we go in.”

That’s why Jax came with us.

I look at Honor’s photograph on Jan’s tablet. Dark braids, steady eyes, a young woman who went looking for answers about women nobody else seemed interested in finding.

She was fighting for women who’d already been forgotten.

Then she became one of them.

Outside her community, barely anyone seems to care that she’s still missing.

I look past the frozen lake toward Lockhart country.

Maybe the RCMP failed to find Honor.

Or maybe somebody made sure they never looked hard enough.

First Nations Community Center, Northern Manitoba, Canada. 1600 hours.

The community center is warm enough that my glasses fog the second we walk through the door.

Jan laughs softly beside me as I pull them off and wipe them on my jacket. Angus and Jax follow us inside, bringing a gust of freezing air with them before the door closes.

There are maybe thirty people waiting. That tells me more than the file did.

Honor St. John isn't simply a missing woman whose family called the police. She's part of this place. People have left work, homes and families to be here because four strangers have arrived promising to look for someone they love.

Promises don't mean much when you've heard them before.

A woman approaches us from across the room. She's small, perhaps in her seventies, with silver threaded through her dark hair and a face that gives nothing away as she studies each of us.

“Rose St. John,” she says.

I take the hand she offers. “Steve Hollands. This is my wife, Janice. Angus Radcliffe and Jax Reeves.”

Her attention pauses on Jax when she hears his Canadian accent before returning to me.

“You came a long way.”

“Not as far as we need to go.”

Something shifts in her expression.

Rose leads us to a table covered with photographs, maps and handwritten notes. Honor is everywhere. Speaking at community meetings. Standing beside her grandmother. Laughing with a group of children. Holding a protest sign outside the gates of a Lockhart Mining site.

Then I notice the other photographs.

Women. Dozens of them. Different ages. Different decades.

Some photographs are faded almost beyond recognition.

Jan moves closer to the table. “Who are they?”

“Our missing women.”

The room seems colder despite the heating.

Rose touches one photograph, a young woman smiling at the camera sometime in the seventies.

“My cousin.”

Her finger moves to another. “My friend’s daughter.”

Another. “My neighbor’s sister.”

I look along the table and realize Honor wasn't investigating a handful of recent disappearances. She was building a history.

“How many?” Jan asks.

“We don't know.”

Rose says it without drama, which somehow makes it worse.

“Honor was trying to find out. She went through old newspapers, family records, and police reports when she could get them. She talked to people in other communities.

Women disappeared around the mines, around the camps, along the roads leading to them. Some went there for work. Some protested what Lockhart was doing to the land. Some were simply young women trying to get home.”

“And the RCMP?” I ask.

Rose looks at me.

“The police stopped looking for our women a long time ago.” She pauses. “If they ever started.”

Jan's hand finds mine beneath the edge of the table.

I've seen corruption. I've watched money buy cops, judges and politicians. We've spent time pulling women out of places where powerful men believed money gave them ownership over another human being.

But this isn't one trafficking operation. It isn't one corrupt official or one missing woman.

The photographs stretch across decades.

Honor understood that. Then she disappeared while trying to prove it.

I look around the room at the people waiting for us to do what the authorities haven't.

“We're going to find Honor.”

Rose studies me for several seconds.

“And the others?”

I look back at the photographs.

That's the real question.

“We’ll find out what happened to them too.”

Jan squeezes my hand.

We came to Canada to find one missing woman.

I'm beginning to understand that isn't the job.

The job is finding out how many there are.

First Nations Community Center, Northern Manitoba, Canada. 1730 hours.

By the time I walk outside, daylight is already draining from the sky.

Jan stays inside with Rose and several of the families, going through Honor’s notes and the missing women’s photographs. Angus starts photographing the maps spread across the tables. Jax follows me outside, and I pull out the satellite phone Serenity packed for us.

Victor answers on the third ring.

“Tell me.”

“We’ve got a problem.”

“How big?”

I look through the windows at the photographs covering the tables inside.

“Decades.”

Silence follows while I give him the short version. Photographs going back to the seventies, disappearances around Lockhart operations and families still waiting for answers.

Victor doesn’t interrupt. When I finish, his voice is quieter. “And Honor?”

“She’s still missing. Vehicle recovered near a Lockhart access road. Coat still inside. Phone, camera and notebook missing.”

“Do we have evidence of Lockhart involvement?”

“Nothing we can put in front of a court yet.”

“But?”

“But I’ve seen enough Legacy operations to know what this smells like.”

Jax comes to stand beside me, hands buried in his jacket pockets against the cold.

Victor asks, “What do you need?”

Before I answer, Jax does.

“Kai Morand.”

I look at him.

“You know him?”

“Know of him.” Jax looks toward the forest beyond the community. “His name came up when I was operating in Canada. Ex-RCMP. Métis. Left the Mounties and started working missing-person cases the official channels weren’t doing much about.”

Victor has clearly started searching at his end. “I’ve got him.”

Jax nods. “Then you’ll know he runs sled dogs.”

“Breeds them,” Victor says. “Working dogs.”

“More than that. He breeds for pulling power and scent tracking. Means he can get into country vehicles can’t reach, haul his own gear, then put the dogs onto a trail when he gets there.

He’s an award-winning musher too. Races his teams competitively and has won some of the toughest sled races in the region.

Bloke knows exactly what those dogs can do in country most people wouldn’t attempt. ”

I look toward the frozen lake beyond the community.

“Useful bloke to know around here.”

“He works alone,” Jax says. “Mostly.”

“Why?”

Jax gives me a look. “Probably because he used to be RCMP.”

Fair enough.

Victor speaks again. “His sister disappeared five years ago.”

That wipes away any trace of humor.

“Same region?” I ask.

“Close enough to matter. She was never found.”

I look back through the community center windows. Rose is beside Jan now, pointing to something on one of the maps.

“Does he know about Honor?”

“Advocacy networks have been circulating her disappearance. I’d be surprised if he doesn’t.”

“Then contact him.”

Victor pauses. “You sure?”

“Jax reckons he’s the bloke we need, that’s enough for me.”

Beside me, Jax gives a short nod.

I look toward the darkening forest. We came here expecting to search for Honor.

Now we’ve got decades of missing women, a mining dynasty with enough money to bury questions, and police records that seem designed to tell us as little as possible.

If Kai Morand knows this land and knows how to find people who disappear into it, I want him beside us.

“Get him here, Victor.”

“I’ll make the call.”

The line disconnects.

Jax looks toward the forest again.

“If Honor’s out there, Kai’s the bloke I’d want looking for her.”

I put the satellite phone back inside my jacket.

“Then let’s hope he answers.”

First Nations Community Center, Northern Manitoba, Canada. 1815 hours.

By the time we’re ready to leave, darkness has settled over the lake and the temperature has dropped with it.

Angus is loading the last of the photographs and notes we’ve been given into the back of the SUV while Jax talks with two local men about roads leading toward Lockhart land. Jan is still inside the community center with Rose.

I stand beside the vehicle and look back through the windows. People are still there.

Some have been here since we arrived. Others came after hearing strangers had flown halfway across the world to look for Honor. Families brought photographs of daughters, sisters, mothers, cousins and friends who disappeared years or even decades ago.

They didn’t come because they trust us. They came because they’ve run out of people willing to listen.

The door opens and Jan steps outside with Rose beside her. Rose has added a thick coat over her clothes, but she doesn’t seem interested in going home yet.

“You have somewhere to stay?” she asks.

“Yes. Serenity arranged accommodation at a place called White Pine Lodge about fifteen minutes from here.”

Rose nods, then looks toward Jax and Angus. “You’ll come back tomorrow?”

It isn’t suspicion in her voice. It’s experience.

People have come before. Taken statements. Written reports. Promised phone calls. Then left.

“We’ll be back,” I tell her.

Her eyes stay on mine. “They always say that.”

Fair enough.

I take out my phone and bring up the photograph I took of Honor’s missing-person page. Her face fills the screen above the date she disappeared.

Eleven days.

I turn the phone toward Rose.

“Tomorrow makes twelve. I don’t intend to let it make thirteen without knowing more than we know tonight.”

Rose studies me before looking at Jan.

She gives her a small nod. “We’re not leaving.”

Something in Rose’s expression eases, although I doubt she’s ready to believe us yet. She shouldn’t be.

Trust isn’t something we get because we turned up in expensive winter gear with Blackstone money behind us and promises nobody asked for. We earn it by coming back tomorrow. And the day after that. For as long as it takes.

Jax closes the rear hatch. “Ready when you are.”

I nod, but I don’t move yet.

Beyond Rose, more people have come outside. They stand near the community center beneath the exterior lights, bundled against the cold, watching us prepare to leave.

I think about the photographs covering those tables.

Women whose files were closed.

Women whose disappearances were dismissed.

Women whose families were expected to accept that sometimes people simply vanish.

Maybe some died out here. Maybe some were taken somewhere else. Maybe some are still alive.

Right now, we don’t know.

But we’re going to.

Eleven days missing. It’s already eleven days too many.

I change the name of Honor's missing person's file on my phone.

Day 11.

Tomorrow it becomes Day 12.

A number we keep counting until Honor is standing in front of us.

I put the phone away and open the SUV door.

This time, the file stays open.