Chapter 36
Hudson moved first.
The snow was knee-deep between the tree line and the cabin, muffling any sound.
Sarah was exactly where she’d agreed to be, behind him and Walter.
He made himself wait before checking on her, but if he didn’t look back soon, he’d lose his damn mind.
He needed to know she wasn’t pushing past what her body could do.
When he looked, she was pale beneath the bruising, moving with the careful economy of a woman who knew exactly how much her body had left to give and was rationing it. She caught him looking and gave him a flat stare that said everything it needed to.
Fifty yards became thirty. Twenty.
Somewhere deeper in the trees, a branch cracked.
Hudson froze.
His gun came up, sights snapping toward the sound. Walter dropped to a crouch, rifle covering the trees. To Hudson’s left, snow sifted loose from a high branch and drifted through the pines.
Nothing moved.
Hudson waited another three seconds, then he lowered the muzzle by a fraction.
“Wind,” Walter murmured.
“Maybe.” Hudson started forward again.
The structure resolved itself into detail as they closed—a hunting cabin, built low against the weather. Log walls blackened from decades of storms. A single window on the near side, curtained from inside with something dark.
The porch came into focus one detail at a time.
The padlock Sarah had spotted through the binoculars hung from the hasp, forced open, the torn metal bright against the aged wood.
Scuffed snow at the base of the steps. Overlapping boot prints.
A smear of mud on the bottom rail where someone had braced a foot. No blood. No drag marks outside.
The door was shut.
Hudson didn’t touch it yet. He crouched beside the bottom step and studied the threshold. The smell of rotting wood hung in the air, and beneath it, kerosene.
Nothing disturbed the narrow gap beneath the door. No wires. No fresh marks around the frame.
He rose and put his hand on the door.
Unlocked.
He signaled Miller to cover the rear and Miller eased away soundlessly, rifle up.
The hinges gave with a low groan that was deafening in the wintry hush. Hudson went in fast and low, gun raised, clearing the threshold in one stride, sweeping left to right before his second boot had crossed the frame.
Living room. Small. A wood stove, unlit. Newspapers piled on the floor, recent enough that the print hadn’t yellowed. An empty water bottle on its side near the wall. A kerosene lamp on a rickety table. A cupboard door hung open. A chair lay on its side. Someone had left in a hurry.
Clear.
Kitchen. Narrow galley. A box of crackers open on the counter. The window above the sink looked out onto the rear toward the white wilderness.
“Bedroom’s clear,” Walter called.
Hudson followed him in. The room was tiny. One cot. Blankets bunched at the foot. A bucket in the corner stinking of disinfectant. Sliced zip ties on the floor beside the cot. Bile soured his mouth. Someone had been held here.
But the room was empty.
He checked the closet. A single shelf, bare. Nothing behind the door. Only dust and cold floorboards beneath the cot.
He came back out into the living room where Sarah was standing near the wood stove, her expression careful and controlled. “She’s not here.”
Miller’s voice came through the radio. “Rear’s clear.”
The words settled over the cabin like another layer of snow. But Cord had been certain. Hudson swept the room again. Every sign said someone had been here recently. Every room said they were too late.
Sarah moved slowly across the room, her boots quiet on the worn floorboards. She paused beside the stove, her fingertips brushing the rough log wall.
“Sarah?”
She shifted her weight. The floorboard creaked beneath her boot. She frowned and took another careful step. This time the sound was different.
Hudson crossed to her as Sarah knelt, one hand braced around her ribs as she laid the other flat against the timber floor. Wind whispered from the open door.
The faintest scrape came from beneath them.
So indistinct Hudson might have dismissed it as the house settling.
Sarah rapped lightly on the floorboards, head tilted as she listened.
Her gaze traveled slowly across the room, taking in the position of the stove, the table, and the rug bunched beneath it.
“These old hunting cabins. A lot of them were built over root cellars. They kept vegetables down there through the winter.” She looked at the stove. “The hatch would’ve been somewhere near the heat.”
Walter shoved the table aside, pulling the rug back from the center of the floor. Hudson ran his hands across the boards, feeling for the seam, the cut edge, anything that would mark a hatch against the grain of the original floor.
His fingertips found it—a rectangular cut in the boards, almost invisible under the rug’s weight, with a recessed iron ring pull caked with grime.
He curled his fingers through the ring. “Stay back.”
Sarah scooted backward, giving him space with her gun up, covering him, exactly where he would have put her if she’d asked.
Hudson pulled.
The hatch came up reluctantly, stiff on rusty hinges.
Cold air breathed out of the darkness, carrying damp earth, mold, and iron.
He swung his legs through the opening and lowered himself into the darkness, dropping the final few inches to the dirt floor.
He swept his flashlight left. Empty shelving. Right. Stone wall. Behind. Nothing.
He angled the beam at the low ceiling, searching for fishing line, pressure switches, anything waiting to punish the first man through the hatch.
Clear.
His flashlight landed on a figure curled against the far wall beneath a filthy blanket. A woman.
He checked the space around her. No weapon within reach. No one concealed behind the shelving. No second exit.
Her hands were bound in front of her with zip ties. Her shoulders shook, hair obscuring her face in tangled strands. Her lips were blue with cold, her skin waxy beneath the grime. Her bare feet were tucked under her as if she’d been trying to make herself smaller to survive.
Fuck. Nora.
Her eyes caught the light and flew wide with terror. Hudson dipped the beam immediately, keeping it on the floor between them as he holstered his gun.
He held up his empty hands, making sure she saw them before he took a single step closer. “It’s okay,” he said. “You’re safe now.”
Her eyes stayed locked on his face, wide and unseeing, her breath coming in short, ragged bursts that fogged the cold air between them.
“Sarah,” Hudson called up. “She’s here. She’s alive.”
Sarah’s boots moved on the floor above him, and then she was at the hatch. “I’m coming down.”
“Sarah—”
Her legs swung over the edge.
Arguing now would waste seconds Nora didn’t have. He caught Sarah by the hips, gently lowering her to the floor.
“Thanks.” She moved past him to crouch in the dirt beside Nora.
“Nora.” Her voice came out low and warm. “Remember me? I’m the sheriff. Sarah Meyer. It’s over.”
Nora kept her gaze locked on Sarah, tears welling in her eyes.
“Hudson, your knife.” Sarah held out her hand without taking her eyes off Nora.
He placed it in her palm. Sarah leaned in slowly, letting Nora see every movement as she sliced carefully through the zip ties around her wrists. The plastic fell away, leaving angry red welts around skin so cold it looked almost translucent.
“There we go,” Sarah murmured. “You’re doing so well.”
A small sob escaped Nora, her fingers clawed with cold. Sarah peeled off her own gloves and eased them over Nora’s hands, careful of her raw wrists.
“We’re going to get you out of here,” she said. “Deputy Marshal Kane’s going to help. Is that all right?”
Nora looked uncertainly toward Hudson, then back to Sarah. When Sarah smiled, she gave the smallest nod.
Hudson crouched beside her. “Can you stand up for me?”
Nora planted one gloved hand against the dirt floor and tried. Her arms trembled violently. She barely made it halfway before her legs gave way beneath her, and she slumped back against the wall with a frustrated, broken sound.
“It’s all right,” Sarah said. “Don’t fight it.”
Hudson kept his voice low. “I’m going to carry you.”
Sarah didn’t hesitate. She gathered the filthy blanket from around Nora’s shoulders, tucking the loose edge beneath Nora’s arms so it wouldn’t slip once Hudson lifted her. Then she rested one steady hand on Nora’s shoulder.
“Hudson has you. I’ve got you too.”
Nora’s breathing eased by the smallest fraction.
Only then did Hudson slide one arm behind her shoulders and the other beneath her knees.
Sarah supported Nora’s head and kept the blanket tucked around her until Nora’s weight was secure against Hudson’s chest. The weight pulled across his ribs, but he locked down his breathing and rose.
Walter was already kneeling at the opening above. “Ready.”
Hudson raised Nora carefully toward the hatch. Walter lay flat beside the opening and reached down, securing an arm around her shoulders while Hudson supported her from below. Together, they eased her onto the cabin floor.
Once Nora was safely above, Sarah came to stand in front of him.
Hudson stripped off his gloves. “Hands.”
She blinked at him, then held them out. He slid the gloves over her bare fingers, tugging each cuff snug.
“Hudson. You need these.”
“So do you.” He met her eyes. “I’m not the one recovering from a concussion.”
She looked at him for a long second, her cheeks flushed from the cold.
“You found her, Sarah.”
The smallest smile touched her mouth. “We found her.”
He laced his fingers into a stirrup. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
He boosted her up. She caught the edge of the opening, swung a knee onto the floor above, and pulled herself through.
Only then did Hudson haul himself out after her, a grunt escaping him as pain stabbed through his lungs.
The cabin looked exactly as it had five minutes ago.
Except it wasn’t a prison anymore. Sarah was beside Nora, wrapping another blanket around her shoulders and resting a steady hand between her shoulder blades as she spoke in the same calm voice.
“That’s it. Stay with me. You’re safe now. EMS is en route.”
Walter had his radio in his hand.
“Bring EMS in,” he said. “We’ve got her. Alive. Severe exposure.”
Static crackled. Then the answer came back. “Copy that. Moving now.”
Nora was small in a huddle of blankets on the floor. Hudson scooped her up again and carried her out. Sarah walked beside him, one hand resting lightly against Nora’s shoulder the entire way.
Cord’s face was pressed to the window glass before Hudson had covered half the distance. The muffled sounds of his shouts marked the last steps to the cruiser.
Sarah opened the cruiser’s rear door.
For a second, Cord couldn’t speak. His mouth opened and closed. His eyes filled, and he turned his face away as if that hid anything from anyone.
Hudson had imagined putting Cord on his knees a hundred times. None of those imaginings had looked like this. Hatred had been so much easier before Cord became a man again.
Statton took Cord by the arm and helped him out of the cruiser. Everything in Cord’s face came apart at once. He sagged. “Nora. Thank God.”
“Jake?” Nora reached for Cord from Hudson’s arms despite his cuffs.
Cord bent awkwardly around the cuffs and pressed his forehead to hers. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Sarah stepped away and gave them the few seconds they had before the EMTs came up the track. They wrapped Nora in heated blankets, transferred her carefully onto a stretcher and carried her toward the ambulance staged down the road. Cord turned as if every part of him wanted to follow.
The ambulance doors closed behind her.
Cord lowered his head as Statton eased him back into the cruiser. Before the door closed, he leaned forward. “Kane.” He motioned to Hudson. “My word is good. I’ll tell you everything, like I said. No more running.”
Hudson had imagined those words for a year. He’d imagined victory. Vindication. The moment the hunt finally ended. Standing there in the snow, he felt nothing like he’d expected. He shifted his gaze to Sarah. She was talking to Walter, one hand absently rubbing her bruised side.
He’d come to Aurora Cove hunting one ghost. Instead, he’d found the woman he’d spent fifteen years convinced he’d lost. He couldn’t even say when it had happened, but Sarah Meyer was the reason he wanted to stay.
She was the future he’d stopped believing he could have.