Chapter 10
Something felt different. Reborn, maybe. A dawn, pressing against the darkness inside.
She’d call it hope, and oh, she didn’t want this to end.
Harley set the pot of cooked oatmeal on the table, the warm maple syrup next to it, and then went to the cupboard for the bowls while Gabe—Gabe!—stirred the fire.
Jericho shucked off his jacket and boots, the expression he’d sent her way lighting inside her. Hunger—it matched his words. “Like a bear after hibernation.”
Somehow, she got the feeling he wasn’t talking about actual food. And she got it because last night, as he’d kissed her—twice—it had awakened a hunger in her too.
A hunger for justice. And restoration.
A hunger for the happy ending she’d once dreamed about.
Gabe was alive. She had a nephew. And Jericho wasn’t going anywhere. He’d actually said it out loud.
Outside, the blizzard had died, but the wind still shifted snow off the drifts, across the frozen lake where Winter’s plane sat encased in snow. Still, sunlight broke through steel clouds, gilding the snow in sparkles.
And, did she mention that her brother was alive?
Yes, the entire world sparkled.
“You stocked the cabin well,” Winter told Gabe as he pulled the grate back in place.
“I drove out here before the first snow,” he said.
“Brought in supplies.” He came over to the cupboard and pulled down a tin of coffee.
“It was far enough off-grid to hide from Mars, close enough to circle into Copper Mountain and watch Sunni.” He’d helped his girlfriend into the living room and settled her on the sofa, her leg up on the pillow. “And Daniel.”
Harley still couldn’t get her head around a five-year-old nephew.
“Speaking of, where is he now?” Harley asked.
“With my parents, in Copper Mountain,” Sunni said. “I live with them, so it makes it easy.”
“And safer,” Gabe said. “We lived in the dome for a while, in the few months after we were married—”
“You got married? Without me?” Harley had been turning toward the table, holding spoons and now the entire room went quiet.
“We eloped. It was right after that when I started working for the DEA and I thought . . .” He had walked over to Sunni, put his hands on her shoulders. “Well, if something went south, I wanted her to have some insurance protection.”
“You got married and took out life insurance?” Jericho had taken off his stocking cap, his brown hair wild.
“Yes. And she’s lived on that for the past five years.”
“Is that . . . wait . . . isn’t that fraud?” Topher asked.
“I think technically, since it was through the WITSEC program, and I was declared dead, it might be okay . . . Listen, it wasn’t my idea.” He held up his hands. “I blame the FBI—a guy named Rio. It was his plan.”
“Rio, as in the guy tracking down Mars?” Jericho walked over to the table and pulled out a chair. “He knows you’re alive?”
“All he knows is that he helped fake my death and then I disappeared. I haven’t talked to him in five years.”
“I’m going to need food for this,” Harley said. “Sit down. I want the entire story.”
She sat next to Jericho. Orlando came over and put his muzzle on her knee.
“He’s going to beg food from you,” Jericho said. She probably shouldn’t have been surprised that he took her hand, squeezed. In his gesture, all she heard was his whisper from last night. “I’m here. I’ve got you.”
Maybe he was. She squeezed his hand back. “He’ll get it. I’m a softie for those brown eyes and a guy who needs me.”
Jericho raised an eyebrow.
She winked and he laughed.
Coffee gurgled on the stove, and Winter brought it over and sat down.
“I’m going to pray for us,” Gabe said.
Harley stared at him as he helped Sunni into a chair.
Her brother was going to pray?
Since when—
Gabe bent his head and the words fell on her. “Lord, we’re grateful for second chances. That you never leave us in darkness. That you sustain, deliver, provide, and bring us into light. Thank you for this food you provided. Protect us this day as we get home. Amen.”
She didn’t realize she’d been staring until he lifted his head.
The smile Gabe gave her seemed to laser right through her. “When did you . . . I mean . . . how—?”
He reached for the oatmeal, scooped some into Sunni’s bowl. “When did I get saved?” He poured oatmeal into his own bowl. “Did you not hear the preacher at Mom and Dad’s funeral?”
She’d been mostly consumed with fury, so, “I was there, but . . . I guess not.”
Jericho offered to dish up her oatmeal. She nodded.
“He started with Psalm 119, ‘Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.’ And then he talked about how Mom was a faithful Bible reader.”
Yes, she was.
“And then he talked about Dad and how he’d become a Christian.
How when he arrived in Alaska, he’d been sort of wild.
Worked as a guide but was essentially homeless and how Pastor Neil had found him sleeping in his car and invited him home for a meal before church.
And then he preached the sermon that changed Dad. ”
She only remembered the steady and quiet version of her father.
“I think he might have been preaching to me, actually.” Gabe smiled, and she couldn’t get past the clear-eyed, solid, even wise version of her younger brother. So much like her father, really, her throat filled.
Dad would have liked to see Gabe kick his demons. Or maybe he had, given Gabe’s story.
It had been her left in darkness.
“Then he talked about Titus 3:1–7. It’s a passage about how we start out foolish, disobedient, deceived, and enslaved by all sorts of passions and pleasures.
How we live lives of darkness. And then how, in the kindness of God, and in his love, he sent a savior.
And not because of anything we did but because of his mercy.
” He picked up his coffee. “The part that got me was the offer of rebirth. The idea that I could start over.”
Jericho held out the bowl of brown sugar and she took it.
“Right then, the choice stopped me. I could go down into the grave with Mom and Dad, let the grief take me into darkness. Or I could let God save me. Get reborn. The way of the foolish is to go our own way. My pride deceived me into thinking that I could fix things, figure things out and make all the lies I believed go away on my own. That I could somehow untangle myself from all the things that had trapped me.”
He looked at Sunni. “God does not keep a record of wrongs.”
She reached up, took his hand.
Then he turned his attention back to Harley. “You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Harley smiled. “Dad used to say that. I thought he was using it to make sure we didn’t lie.” She drew in a breath. “How?” She added a bit of the brown sugar to her oatmeal.
Jericho’s hand on her wrist stopped her and she looked over. “Easy with the sugar,” he said softly, his voice low, just for her. “Your hands are shaking.”
Oh. They were.
She set down the spoon, and his fingers threaded through hers under the table. Steady.
Gabe kept talking. “Yeah, well, apparently, it was that sentence that made Dad realize he’d been living lies.
And me too. After the service, I talked with Pastor Neil and exchanged my stupid, foolish, dead life for a new one.
I was struggling with addiction again. I’d moved from drugs to alcohol, and I knew I was headed for trouble.
So I checked myself into treatment and met Sunni again. ”
She lifted a shoulder. “I was a patient, a little further down the journey. I knew Gabe from high school, and we’d dated for a while before that, but the Gabe I met there was different.
And so was I.” She squeezed his hand. “I wouldn’t have survived the past five years without God walking with me. ” Her gaze was warm on Gabe. “With us.”
Silence fell around the table and Harley looked away, at her melting mound of brown sugar, the smell sweet against the scent of the fire.
“God has a plan in everything, and he is merciful,” Gabe said softly. “The day we buried Mom and Dad was the day I knew I’d see them again. It’s the day I found life.”
And the day Harley had walked deeper into darkness.
She nearly pushed away from the table, but Jericho’s hand glued her in place. Still, her eyes burned, and she nodded, unable to meet her brother’s eyes.
“And now, in God’s plan, maybe it’s time for justice.” Gabe’s voice hardened. “We need to take down Mars Sorros, and I have the testimony—and proof—to do that.”
“That means we have to find him,” Jericho said, his voice thrumming through her.
Not alone. She squeezed his hand.
“So what’s the plan?” Winter asked. “About Mars?”
Gabe leaned forward, his oatmeal untouched, steam rising from the bowl.
“Like I said, I started working with Dad about six months before he died. I brought him proof that the Sorros brothers were using their construction company as a front for drug running.” His voice fell.
“I was working on one of their crews and was able to get into the office and trace shipments through North Face Construction, following building supplies. They’ve changed the name to Summit, but they’re still in operation. ”
“Summit?” Jericho stiffened. “They’re building the Eagle’s Nest.”
“Yes. And I think they’re still using the company as a front.
” Gabe’s jaw tightened. “They transport product in joint compound buckets. Who checks drywall supplies? It’s brilliant, really.
The compound looks normal, but underneath .
. .” He stirred his oatmeal. “They move it from site to site, no one the wiser. Just another construction delivery.”
“Perfect cover,” Harley said. “No one questions a construction truck.”
“Yeah, well, when I testified against them, they were a small gig in Copper Mountain. They dissolved that company, built another in Anchorage, and now it’s servicing all of Alaska. Who knows where else.”
“And Dad knew this?” Harley asked.