Chapter 11
Torin
Dawn is just breaking when I step out onto the terrace. The air is cool, the stone beneath my feet still holding the night’s chill.
The two empty glasses of iced tea are still sitting on the table. The blowtorch too.
I start gathering everything up, then notice the faint imprint of Hannah’s lips on the side of her glass.
A grin tugs at my mouth.
Hannah sat right here yesterday. She ate s’mores with me, laughed at my shitty crème br?lée technique, and then—
Mate.
My beast sounds unbearably pleased with himself.
I can’t wait to see her again.
But first, there’s something she needs: internet.
I take the glasses and blowtorch into the kitchen and reach for the coffee. The bag is empty. Looks like I’m heading into town earlier than planned.
I pull out my phone and check the time. The stores won’t be open yet, but Molly’s will.
Coffee first. Then I can figure out how the hell to get internet out to a wilderness cabin.
I go to get dressed.
An hour later, I’m sitting in a booth at Molly’s Diner with a stack of pancakes in front of me and enough coffee in my system to activate my brain.
A couple of truckers are eating at the counter, and two hikers have a map spread across the table behind me.
I pull out my phone and type:
HOW TO GET INTERNET IN WILDERNESS CABIN
The results aren’t encouraging.
Signal boosters. Mesh networks. Satellite internet. A lot of diagrams that seem to assume I already know what half the words mean.
I’m halfway through an article about satellite dishes when the waitress appears with the coffee pot.
“More?”
“Please.”
She fills my mug, then glances up at the television behind the counter.
“Poor girl.”
I look up.
Hannah’s face fills the screen.
She looks a little younger. Her hair is longer than it is now, and she’s wearing lipstick, but her smile is stiff.
Beneath the photo, a banner reads:
MISSING WOMAN
What the hell?
I’m so focused on her picture that the reporter’s voice barely registers.
“...family say they are extremely concerned...”
“...last seen three days ago...”
The reporter cuts to a man standing outside the sheriff’s department. Broad shoulders, silver hair, one hand resting at his belt, the other holding a piece of paper.
There’s something familiar about his mouth, the shape of his eyes.
My gut tightens.
Hannah’s father.
He begins to speak:
“My daughter, Hannah Hayes, has been missing for three days. We are asking anyone with information about her whereabouts to contact the sheriff’s department immediately.”
He speaks evenly, with authority. If he pulled me over on a dark road, I wouldn’t think twice about doing what he said.
“Hannah has had a difficult time recently. My daughter is not well right now, and anyone who sees her should understand that she may not be in a position to judge what is safe for her.”
The waitress makes a quiet sound of sympathy.
“She may be frightened. She may be confused. She may tell people things that sound convincing.”
He looks straight into the camera and swallows hard. “Hannah, sweetheart, if you’re watching this, I love you. Call home. Let us help you. Whatever you think has happened, whatever you think you’ve done, we can talk about it. We want you home.”
The reporter says something I don’t catch.
Sheriff Hayes nods.
“We’re treating this as a missing vulnerable adult case. Again, if anyone has seen Hannah, please call the number on your screen rather than approaching her yourself.”
The segment ends.
The weather comes on.
For a few seconds, I keep staring at the TV.
She may tell people things that sound convincing.
Jesus.
Because he is convincing.
If I hadn’t met Hannah, I’d be sitting here thinking exactly what the waitress is thinking: poor girl. Poor family. Thank God she has a father who’s trying to find her.
But I have met her. And I know exactly what he’s doing.
He’s made sure that if Hannah asks anyone for help, they’ll call him instead.
Fuck.
And she doesn’t even know this is happening. She’s sitting up at that cabin with no internet, no way to see what he’s saying about her or find out how far this has spread.
I reach for my wallet, throw enough cash on the table to cover breakfast and head for the door.
The cabin door flies open before I’ve even killed the engine.
Hannah steps onto the porch and shades her eyes.
A grin spreads across her face.
I smile back, even as the image of her face on the TV screen flashes through my head.
She has no idea.
I climb out of the truck and reach into the passenger seat.
“Back again?” she calls.
“Can’t seem to stay away.”
Her smile gets bigger.
God, she’s beautiful.
Then her attention shifts to the box. “What’s that?”
“Internet.”
She comes down from the porch. “You can’t fit the internet in a box.”
“Shows what you know.”
I carry it around the side of the cabin, looking for the clearest stretch of sky. Hannah follows, frowning.
“What’s wrong?”
She shakes her head and comes closer. “When I complained about the internet, I wasn’t expecting you to actually do something about it.”
“You said you needed it.”
“I said the cabin didn’t have it.”
“Same thing.”
A little smile appears.
I set the box on the ground and open it.
Hannah crouches beside me as I pull out a satellite dish, a tangle of cable and several pieces of hardware whose purpose isn’t immediately obvious.
She picks up the folded instruction sheet.
“Have you ever installed one of these?”
“No.”
Her eyes lift to mine.
“I asked the guy at the store. He said it was easy.”
“Those sound like famous last words.” She laughs and unfolds the instructions.
I start laying out the parts.
After a moment, Hannah shifts closer until her shoulder rests lightly against my arm.
I smile and keep working.
A minute later, she taps one of the metal brackets with the instructions.
“That’s backwards.”
I look at it. She’s right. I turn it around.
She keeps reading while I assemble the rest of the mount.
“It needs a clear view of the northern sky.”
I glance up. The cabin is surrounded by pines, but there’s a decent stretch of open sky above the roof.
“That’ll do.”
I pick up the dish.
“What do you need me to do?” Hannah asks.
“Keep reading.”
“So basically all the difficult stuff.”
“Exactly.”
She holds a straight face for a second, then laughs.
I shake my head and climb onto the roof.
From up here, I can see farther down the valley than I expected. Bennett picked a good spot for this place. Hidden enough that Hannah’s father is unlikely to stumble across it, but not so buried in the trees that the dish has no chance.
I find a clear spot and secure the mount, then attach the dish.
“Anything happening?” I call down.
“No.”
I adjust it. “How about now?”
“No.”
Another adjustment. “Now?”
“My phone is not going to develop internet because you keep asking it.”
“It might encourage it.”
She doesn’t dignify that with a response.
There’s a pause. Then, “I have one bar.”
I look down.
Hannah is staring at her screen. “Two.”
I sit back on my heels. “See?”
She doesn’t answer.
Her phone vibrates.
Then again.
Hannah’s smile disappears.
Texts are appearing faster than she can read them. Missed calls. Emails. Apps waking up after days offline.
I climb down and come around beside her.
“Hannah, there’s something I need to tell you.”
She looks up.
“I saw your father on TV this morning.”
Her face goes still. “What?”
“He’s reported you missing.”
She stares at me. “You knew this when you got here?”
“Yeah. I wanted to get you online before I told you. I didn’t want you sitting up here with no way to see what he was saying or find out what was going on.”
She looks down at the phone in her hand. “Thank you.”
Another notification appears. This one from a local news app.
Hannah sees it.
She taps the screen.
Her photograph fills it—the same one from the diner. She presses play, and a second later her father’s voice comes out of the phone.
I watch her instead.
She doesn’t react when he says she isn’t well. Or when he says she may be confused.
But when he tells people not to believe the things she might say, her jaw tightens.
Then comes the part where he calls her sweetheart.
Hannah gives a quiet snort.
The video ends.
She locks her phone, then looks at me.
“How convincing was he?”
There’s no point lying to her.
“If I hadn’t met you, I’d have believed him.”
She nods, like that’s exactly what she expected. “He’s good at this.”
“At lying?”
“At making everyone else look like they are.”
She slips the phone into her pocket. “He always gets his story out first. Then anything you say afterward sounds like an excuse.”
I think of the man on the television. That calm voice, his sheriff’s uniform. Everybody in that diner listening to him and seeing a worried father.
“But I have met you.”
Her expression hardens. “My dad is a monster, Torin.”
“I believe you.”
“He gave me to Cade because he wanted me quiet. He was going to let him keep me up there for the rest of my life.”
The words land harder now that I’ve seen Hayes. Heard him call her sweetheart while telling half the county not to trust a word out of her mouth.
Hannah looks back at the phone in her hand.
“He’s not going to stop, is he?”
I shake my head. “Not after what I saw this morning.”
Her mouth tightens. “And now he’ll know I’m trying to get the evidence out. All he has to do is find me.”
“He’s not getting to you.”
“You don’t have to do this on your own anymore.”
She blinks hard. “Nobody’s ever said that to me before.”
Fuck.
“Well, somebody should have.”
She looks down. “You barely know me.”
I almost laugh. Barely know her. My bear knew her before I knew the sound of her laugh. Before I knew how stubborn she was, or how her eyes lit up when she beat me at something.
I’m the one catching up.
“Give me time,” I say.