Chapter 1
So, this was a disaster.
Stormi White watched her Malamute-Labrador mix run his third circle around the bloody trail from the raw steak she’d dragged across the snow behind her veterinarian compound.
Her chest tightened. When her team leader, SAR pilot Moose Mulligan, called for that progress report—and he would call—she’d have nothing to share but another failed training session.
Because clearly, she had no clue what she was doing.
“It’s not going well, is it?”
And of course her famous life-coach sister read her mind through the cell phone line all the way from her cute bungalow in Brainerd, Minnesota. Her sister Aspen’s daily “Are you sure living in remote Alaska is a good idea?” phone call.
Yes. Usually.
Aspen breathed hard as she power walked on her treadmill in her DIY remodeled house.
“Not great, no.” Stormi turned to her dog. “Come on, Rome.” She tugged the rope, dragging the steak in a wide arc around black spruce trees. “It’s right there.”
Rome stood in the snow, his ears perked.
Moose had once said the dog reminded him of Balto.
Maybe, but the famous sled dog had been a nearly all-black Siberian Husky.
Rome’s fur scattered hints of gold around his ears and snout, and he had plenty of white from his Malamute sire.
So sure, he had the heart of a sled dog, but the labrador in him also made her dog funny, distractible, and currently, a disaster.
“I think you need to give up and admit he’s just a lap dog, Storm,” Aspen said. “I mean, c’mon—you tried to make him a sled dog. Now, you’re trying to resurrect his sense of smell?”
“Alaska Air One Rescue needs a tracking dog. Rome used to be a K9. And it’s been three years since he’s had COVID. Certainly his sense of smell has come back.”
“I dunno. One of my clients had COVID a few years back and she can’t smell anything to this day. I still can’t believe dogs can get COVID.”
“Well, they can, and he did, but . . . aw, poor guy doesn’t know what his purpose is.”
Case in point—instead of following the obvious scent trail, Rome bounded toward the tree line where ptarmigan tracks crisscrossed the snow. He held his nose high yet was completely confused, poor guy.
Behind her, her misfit group of wannabe sled dogs erupted in noise, barking, braying, jumping at the fence of their enclosure.
“What’s going on?” A beep on Aspen’s end, and then her voice came easier, so maybe she finished her five-mile run.
“The kids are probably jealous of the raw beef trail I left in the snow. And, of course, because I’m brilliant, I might even attract a bear out of hibernation for a stroll by White Vet Services.” She dragged the meat toward the big barn that housed her vet clinic. “So, that’ll be exciting.”
“Don’t make me come out there. You know you could always come back and work with Dad—”
“Not a lot of mushers in Brainerd.”
Stormi sat on the stoop of her house, watching the sun set against the far Alaska Range, a blaze of fire on the horizon. If she waited, maybe the northern lights would ribbon across the sky.
“What you should be doing is packing up and heading back to Anchorage. You had a good gig going there.”
“As an assistant to the vet. I’m good at what I do, and I specialize in sled dogs. I like having my own practice—”
“At the far end of the earth!”
“I like it here. It’s quiet.” Sort of. She glanced at her dogs.
Silence pulsed on the other end of the phone.
“Listen,” Stormi said, “it’s only ten miles from Copper Mountain. I’m not going to get buried in a snowdrift.”
“Is that a joke? Because you know people get buried in avalanches up there—”
“Yes, it’s a joke. Calm down, Aspen.”
“Maybe Ridge should come up—”
“Sheesh. I’m fine. I don’t need Mr. Awesome coming up here to babysit me, although if he does, tell him to bring me a pie from the Skylight Diner.”
“You’re hilarious.”
“Besides, this is where I need to be if I want to really learn how to mush. I need the practice if I want to run the Iditarod.”
Silence.
“What?”
“I just think . . . Stormi, I read the news. Wilder Frost is missing. Probably dead.”
Her mouth opened, closed, her eyes burning just a little. “You don’t pull your punches, do you?”
“I’m sorry—it’s a tragedy, for sure. But maybe it’s a sign. I mean, just because Dad dreamed of running the Iditarod doesn’t mean you have to.”
Rome had turned and started barking as if to say, Why are we out here if we’re not going to play?
Good question. “I gotta run. Listen, I know what the news says, but . . . Wilder’s a survivor. I don’t believe he’s dead.”
“You barely know the man—”
“I know him enough.”
“An autographed fan picture on your wall and a collection of news articles does not mean you know him.”
Ouch. “I do know him, Pen. I’ve helped his dogs whelp for over a year now. He’s . . .”
“Not invincible. And, if he is alive, he’s probably still grieving his wife, and not to mention he’s five years older than you.”
“This is so fun. I’m hanging up now.”
“Stormi!”
“I’ll try not to get mauled or buried in a snowpack or, I dunno, trampled by reindeer before our next oh so encouraging call.”
“I’m just trying to help—”
“Love you too.” Stormi hung up and looked at Rome. “Training is over.” She trudged through knee-deep snow back to her vet clinic, carrying the meat. She’d stew it for the dogs’ dinner. Rome ran after her, still barking.
“I know, buddy. But if you can’t smell a juicy ribeye, I don’t see how you’re going to figure out how to track down lost hikers.” She opened the door, set the meat inside, then closed it and knelt in front of the dog.
Fine, more than once when the wind rattled through her cabin door, she considered throwing in the towel on her current wild idea.
Ideas. Plural. Move to Copper Mountain, train her dogs to run in a straight line, take over Anuk Swenson’s vet clinic, join the local SAR team .
. . Okay, maybe she was spreading herself a little thin, but sheesh.
Everybody could calm down. She knew what she was doing.
Mostly.
Poor Rome. She should probably face the facts. Despite her efforts, he would never be a sled dog, his personality was too wild to fit in with the rest of the ragtag team. And, apparently, she wasn’t a great vet either, because she hadn’t been able to restore his sense of smell.
Which left him as . . . well, what Aspen said. An oversized lap dog?
He now leaned his head into her hand as she rubbed his ear. Made a small whining sound. “I love you too, pal,” she said and got up.
Her breath formed white puffs in the air that was so cold, it burned her lungs. The wind carried the scent of an upcoming blizzard, the air sharp. The third blizzard in as many weeks.
Which meant that anyone out there probably wasn’t coming home . . .
No. Wilder Frost, legendary musher, Iditarod finisher, and local hero had to be alive . . .
Her radio crackled against her hip. “Stormi, you copy?” Deke Starr, local sheriff.
She fumbled for the handset with mittened fingers. “This is Stormi. Go ahead, Deke.”
“Winter flew over your area earlier and reported a car in the ditch on Copper Creek Road. Sedan, dark color. Can you check it out while we send the emergency team?”
“Where exactly?”
“Mile marker forty-seven. Probably tourists who took a wrong turn and got stuck trying to get up to Summit Lodge.”
She knew the type—city folks who ignored weather warnings and drove rental cars into, as Aspen would call it, the far end of the earth. “I’m on it. ETA about fifteen minutes.”
“Copy that. Be careful out there. Weather’s turning ugly fast.”
As if in warning, wind whistled through the spruce boughs overhead. She glanced at Rome. “Wanna go for a ride?”
Rome barked and ran beside her as she headed toward her SUV. He clambered into the front seat, wagging his tail. The engine turned over with a reluctant groan, fuel thick in the cold. Frigid air blasted from the vents until the motor warmed.
Too long out in these elements and a person without the right gear could freeze to death.
She turned her defrost on high to clear the ice crystals from her windshield as she pulled out of her clinic area.
The snowy path down to Copper Creek Road barely fit her SUV, but once she turned onto the main road, it opened up. A valley spread below—a white expanse broken by dark lines of cottonwood and willow along the half-frozen streambed.
Her studded tires bit into the surface of the icy pavement, four-wheel drive engaged for the steeper sections. Mile marker forty-seven sat at the bottom of a long curve where the road followed the creek.
She almost missed the car—just the dark outline of a roof above a snowbank where the vehicle had plowed nose-first into a cluster of young birch trees.
She left her emergency kit in the back while she got out and grabbed her shovel. Rome jumped out after her, barking.
“Yeah, I see it.” The passenger side of the sedan was buried to its windows, but tracks surrounded the car—boot prints leading away from the driver’s side.
She followed the prints with her flashlight beam. They led about fifty yards down the road then cut off into the forest to the north. Maybe the driver had gone hunting for help.
A sound made her freeze.
Thin. High-pitched. Barely audible over the wind moaning through bare aspen branches.
Crying.
Her pulse hammered in her throat. She plunged toward the car, fighting drifts that swallowed her feet. Wind-driven snow stung her exposed cheeks. She wrenched the driver’s side door open with a shriek of cold metal and a shower of ice crystals.
The smell hit first. Blood. The sweet, cloying odor of death in an enclosed space.
A woman slumped against the far window, a tree branch stabbing into her body through the glass. A face, eyes lifeless. Just to make sure, Stormi leaned in and pressed two fingers against the woman’s carotid artery.
Nothing.
Looked like the tree branch had found her heart, ended her almost immediately. More branches cluttered the back seat.