Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
NOELLE
The truck smells like pine sap. The man driving it hasn't said a word since we pulled onto the highway, which was fourteen minutes ago. I know because I've been counting the dashes on the center line to keep my hands from shaking.
Dane Wilder drives as economically as he talks. One hand on the wheel, eyes on the road, zero interest in filling the silence with small talk about the weather or the scenery or my feelings about relocating to what appears to be the surface of Mars.
Fine by me. Small talk requires lying, and I've done enough of that for one lifetime.
The road narrows past mile marker twelve. He wasn't kidding about cell service. My phone dies quietly in my purse, no signal bars, no notification pings, no way for anyone at Carrington & Associates to track a GPS location they might still be monitoring. My shoulders drop two inches.
"Guest cabin's about a hundred yards from mine." Dane glances at me. "Separate building. Separate entrance. You'll have your own space."
"Thank you."
"It's small. One room, kitchenette, bathroom. Woodstove for heat. Propane for cooking. Water comes from the well."
"Sounds perfect."
Another glance, longer this time. Those brown eyes cataloging something about my response that doesn't match whatever he expected. Most women probably hear "woodstove and well water" and reconsider their life choices. All I hear is no digital footprint.
"You don't scare easy."
"Depends on the threat."
His jaw tightens, just barely. He heard what I didn't say.
The cabin comes into view around a bend in the tree line, and it's exactly what a hand-built home in the middle of nowhere should look like.
Solid log construction, wide porch, metal roof catching the last of the afternoon sun.
A second, smaller structure sits to the east with its own porch and a firewood stack taller than me.
Dane parks near the porch. Hatchet brays from the trailer. The mule has opinions about the parking job, apparently.
"Guest cabin." He nods toward the smaller building and grabs both my suitcases from the truck bed before I can reach them. "I'll get you set up."
The guest cabin is one room. Bed against the far wall with a quilt that looks handmade, small kitchen along one side, bathroom through a door that actually locks. A woodstove. A window over the sink facing the mountain. Clean, spare, functional.
Everything I own right now fits in two suitcases.
Seven months ago I had a corner office with a view of the Connecticut River, a wardrobe organized by season, a 401k that would've made my parents weep with pride.
Now I'm standing in a cabin in Nevada with a man I chose from a catalog because his profile said he preferred silence.
Dane sets my bags inside the door. "Kitchen's stocked. Coffee, canned goods, basics. If you need anything specific, I do a supply run to town every ten days."
"This is great. Really."
He fills the doorway, blocking most of the light.
At this distance, up close, with the sun behind him turning his outline golden, the details sharpen.
Forearms roped with muscle below the pushed-up sleeves.
Beard trimmed close enough to see the set of his jaw.
The scar on his right forearm, jagged and old, running from wrist to elbow.
He catches me looking at it.
"Bear," he says.
"You fought a bear?"
"Bear started it."
The corner of his mouth moves. Not a smile. A twitch. Like smiling is something he's out of practice with.
"I'll let you settle in. Dinner's at six if you're hungry. My cabin, front door's unlocked."
Then he's gone. Boots on gravel, long stride, no hesitation. Hatchet brays again from somewhere behind the property. Dane says something to the mule I can't hear, and Hatchet goes quiet.
My hands are still shaking.
Not from fear. From relief. From standing in a room where nobody knows my full name or my firm's connection to Raymond Schultz and his offshore accounts or the 147 pages of evidence sitting on a flash drive inside the lining of my toiletry bag.
The bathroom has a lock. The window has a curtain. The bed has clean sheets.
Unpacking takes six minutes. Most of my clothes are wrong for this place.
Blazers and silk shells and three pairs of heels I brought because leaving them behind felt like admitting I might never go back to that life.
The hiking boots I bought at REI still have the tags.
My one pair of jeans is stiff. The flannel shirts I ordered online look like a costume.
At five fifty I wash my face, change into jeans and one of the flannels, and walk across the hundred yards of scrubby grass between my cabin and Dane's front porch.
His door is open. Something is cooking. Hatchet is in a paddock to the right, watching me with the same expression Dane had at the bus stop. Calculating.
"Elk stew." Dane is at the stove with his back to me. No greeting, no turn around. He just knew I was there. "Hope you eat meat."
"Please."
The cabin is bigger than mine. Kitchen along one wall, living area around a stone fireplace, bookshelf with paperbacks.
Handmade furniture that looks built for a man his size.
A leather armchair near the window. No television.
No computer. A satellite phone charging on the counter next to a fixed-blade knife.
He serves two bowls without ceremony, tears a piece of bread from a round loaf, sets everything on a small table near the kitchen window. Pulls out a chair for me. Sits across.
The stew is unreasonably good.
"Mountain Match said you're looking for work." He breaks bread, doesn't look up. "What kind?"
"Anything useful. I'm a fast learner."
"You're a lawyer."
My spoon stops. "My application said that?"
"Said former corporate attorney." Now he looks up. Steady. Patient. "Most lawyers don't move to places without cell service."
"Most lawyers don't discover their firm is shielding a client who defrauded pension funds."
It comes out before I can stop it. Seven months of careful deflection, scripted answers, lying to my parents about a wellness retreat, and this man asks one direct question over elk stew and I hand him the truth like bread.
His expression doesn't change. "That why you're here?"
"Partly."
"What's the other part?"
"I needed to not be found for a while."
He nods. No shock, no pity, no barrage of follow-up questions. Just acknowledgment, like I've told him the weather forecast.
"Can you wake up at five?"
"Yes."
"Pack animals need feeding at five fifteen. Trail maintenance starts at six. I've got a corporate group booked next week and the north route needs clearing." He tears another piece of bread. "If you're gonna be here two weeks, you might as well earn your keep."
Something uncoils in my chest. Work. Real, physical, uncomplicated work with a task list and an end point and no billable hours and no senior partners and no classified files on a server that someone else controls.
"I'd like that."
"Good." He pushes back from the table, carries both bowls to the sink. Starts washing. "Boots on the porch at five. Wear layers."
Standing, I bring my glass to the counter. He's at the sink with his sleeves pushed up, forearms under the water, the bear scar catching the overhead light. My hip bumps the counter next to him. Our arms are six inches apart.
"Thank you." My voice comes out quieter than intended. "For not asking more questions."
He turns his head. We're close. Close enough that I can see the gold flecks in his brown eyes, the silver starting in his beard near his jaw, the way his gaze drops to my mouth for one second before he catches himself.
"Figured you'd tell me when you're ready."
His voice is low. The kitchen is small and warm from the stove. My pulse is doing something inconvenient.
"Most people push."
"I'm not most people."
No, he is absolutely not. He's a wall of quiet competence with hands that could snap a man in half and a voice that sounds like gravel under warm water. He saved the bread for me, the bigger piece. I noticed.
His eyes drop again. To my mouth. He doesn't catch himself this time.
The satellite phone buzzes on the counter. We both flinch. He turns back to the dishes. My face is hot.
"Five a.m.," he says. Gravel. Warm water. Not looking at me.
"Five a.m."
The walk back to my cabin takes forty-five seconds. The mountain air is cold. Stars I haven't seen since childhood cover the sky in a density that makes my throat tight. No sirens. No traffic. No notifications from a firm that used my name on documents I never should have signed.
Inside my cabin, I lock the door. Pull the flash drive from my toiletry bag. Hold it in my palm.
One hundred and forty-seven pages of evidence that could bring down Raymond Schultz, his attorneys, and possibly three members of my former firm's senior leadership.
Evidence that made someone send a man to my apartment building at 2 a.m. with a message about what happens to women who can't keep quiet.
Dane Wilder doesn't know what he signed up for. A match. A two-week trial. An employee to help clear trails.
What he got is a woman with a target on her back and a growing inability to stop staring at his forearms.
Both of those things are going to be problems.