Chapter 3
DANE
The bathroom door clicks shut behind me and I brace my hands against the sink, staring at my reflection in the mirror for a second.
I've built a good fucking life here, albeit a bit lonely, but private, and that's why I came out here.
I wanted privacy. I wanted distance from that mess in the city and a chance to do the right thing and make amends—my penance, so to speak.
And I never expected that past to catch up with me, but it has, and now it's tangled up with this woman's past and someone knows. They know the link between us and I never saw them coming.
I unzip my pants and pull my dick out to relieve my bladder and the engine sound registers a second too late.
I freeze mid-stream and listen. It's the unmistakable rumble of my truck turning over, coughing to life, and then the crunch of gravel under tires as she peels out and takes off with my fucking truck.
"Shit." I'm moving before the thought fully forms, yanking the bathroom door open and sprinting through the cabin while zipping my pants back up.
The front door stands wide open, cold air pouring in, and I hit the porch at a dead run and see my truck bouncing down the driveway, taillights glowing red in the darkness.
She actually stole my fucking truck.
"Come back here!" I shout, and I take off running after her anyway, boots pounding dirt and gravel, but it's useless.
The truck picks up speed, takes the curve too fast, and disappears into the trees below.
The sound of the engine fades until there's nothing but wind through the pines and my own harsh breathing.
"Goddammit." I kick some rocks off the driveway and watch them skitter into the underbrush under the glow of the overhead moon while the rage pent up inside me comes to a full boil.
Five years of keeping my head down living in perfect invisibility, and now I've got a woman tearing through the mountains in my vehicle, high on whatever they dosed her with, probably about to wrap herself around a tree.
If she dies out there, that's on me. If she makes it to town and starts talking, that's worse.
I turn back to the cabin, mind racing through options, and try to decide what to do.
I could wait until morning, hope she crashes somewhere non-fatal and I can track her down.
Or I could grab my emergency pack and start hiking, try to cut her off at one of the main roads, but that's a long shot.
Even the hairpin turn is a mile, and she'll be there in seven minutes.
I'd have to all-out sprint through the trees, and in darkness, that'd never work. I'd break my fucking neck.
Or I could do the one thing I've avoided for five years.
I could ask for help.
The landline I keep for emergencies is perched on the kitchen counter under a stack of junk mail.
There's no cell service up here, which is exactly how I want it, but without the landline, I'd never get help if I needed it.
I stare at the receiver for a full minute before picking it up and dialing the number I've memorized but never wanted to use.
It rings four times before someone picks up.
"Sheriff's office." The voice is familiar—gruff, perpetually annoyed.
Wade Carver, the sheriff who's been trying to figure me out since the day I moved to Sutter's Gap.
He doesn't trust me and he doesn't buy my ex-army story, but he's never had enough evidence to dig deeper, and I've been careful to stay on the right side of the law.
Until now.
"This is Dane Strouse. I need to report a stolen vehicle.
" The words taste bitter. Calling the cops goes against every instinct I've honed over twenty-five years of knowing how to handle myself.
It's like betraying a code or something, but if anyone can track down that woman and bring her back to me, then it's him and his posse of rag-tag deputies.
There's a pause. I can practically hear him sitting up straighter, sensing an opportunity. "Strouse. Well, well. Didn't think I'd ever hear from you voluntarily. What happened?"
"Someone took my truck, about ten minutes ago, heading east from my property.
" I keep my voice level and unemotional because I have to find a way to get the truck and the girl back.
But my mind's a little slow to form new ideas in situations like this.
I've never been as quick-witted as the next guy, but it was my hand-eye coordination that got me where I am. Not my power of fast thinking.
"Someone took it, or someone stole it?" His skepticism bleeds through the line. "Because those are two different things."
"Stole it. I didn't give permission."
"Uh-huh. And you're sure about that? Because if this is some kind of domestic situation, I need to know before I send my deputies out there."
Domestic situation. He thinks I'm covering for a girlfriend, a wife, someone I had a fight with. It's a reasonable assumption and one I can use.
"Not really domestic." I feign being wishy-washy then add, "I didn't see who it was. I think she was here waiting when I took a piss and just grabbed my keys and took off." Not technically true, but valid enough to make him pay attention.
"Description?" Now he's interested. A strange woman is more compelling than relationship drama.
"Well, I didn't really get a good look at her but she seemed to be under the influence of something when she drove off.
" I choose my words carefully, planting the seeds I'll need later.
If this turns into something bigger, the most important thing I can do is protect my reputation and keep my real identity a secret.
To them I'm just Dane Strouse, and it has to stay that way.
"Under the influence of what?"
"How the hell should I know? I'm not a doctor. She was just swerving around and almost hit a tree."
Another pause. "Did you call an ambulance?"
"Didn't get the chance. She ran before I could."
"And your first instinct was to call me about your truck, not about a potentially endangered woman." His tone has shifted from skeptical to suspicious. "That's interesting."
"My first instinct was to stop her from killing herself driving in that condition. But she's got a head start and I'm on foot. So yeah, I'm calling you. You want to spend the next hour questioning my motives, or do you want to find her before she drives off a cliff?"
He grunts unhappily then says, "We'll send someone to check it out. What's your approximate location off the main road?"
I give him the details—mile markers, turns, landmarks. He knows where I live, has probably driven past my driveway a dozen times looking for an excuse to investigate. Now he has one.
"Sit tight. We'll call you when we find her." He hangs up before I can respond, but I'm not going to sit around here waiting for them to say they have her.
I grab my jacket from the hook by the door and shrug it on, then lift the floorboard in the bedroom to take a few hundreds out of the old shoe box I use as a piggy bank.
The walk to town is eight miles on gravel roads that turn to pavement about halfway down.
In the dark, with October cold settling into the mountains, it'll take me two hours minimum.
I lock the cabin behind me and start walking.
The forest at night is a different animal than during the day.
Sounds carry differently, shadows move in creepy patterns, and every snap of a branch puts me on edge.
I've done night operations in worse conditions—urban environments where every window could hide a sniper, warehouses where the darkness was absolute and the targets were armed.
But this feels different. More personal.
Because the threat isn't coming from the outside anymore. It's already here, delivered gift-wrapped by an unseen enemy I'm going to have to sniff out on my own.
An hour into the walk, headlights appear on the road behind me. I step to the side, hand instinctively moving toward the gun at my waist, but I don't draw. The vehicle slows—a sheriff's cruiser, light bar dark but engine idling as it pulls alongside me.
The passenger window rolls down. Varen Locke, one of the younger deputies, leans across the seat. "Strouse?"
"Yeah."
"Hop in," he says, grinning. "Sheriff said to bring you to the station." His expression is neutral and professional, but I'm no friend of his. They all act kind until they learn what you’ve done.
I climb into the passenger seat and he pulls back onto the road. The cruiser's warm, the heater running full blast. My fingers start to thaw, tingling painfully as circulation returns.
"We found your truck," Varen says after a minute of driving. "It was downtown, parked crooked across two spaces outside the station. Your friend made quite an entrance."
"She's not my friend."
"Yeah, the sheriff mentioned that." He glances at me sideways. "Also mentioned she was wandering around your property. That happen often?"
"Never happened before."
"Must've been quite a surprise."
I don't answer. He's fishing, trying to get me talking, and I'm not biting.
We drive in silence until the town starts to materialize around us—a scattering of buildings, streetlights casting pools of yellow on empty sidewalks.
At this hour, Sutter's Gap is a ghost town. Even the bar closed thirty minutes ago.
The sheriff's office sits on Main Street, a squat brick building with barred windows and a parking lot that's usually empty. Tonight, it's got my truck taking up two spaces at an angle that suggests panic parking. Varen pulls into a spot near the entrance and kills the engine.
"Fair warning," he says, "she's not happy. Been demanding that we arrest you for kidnapping, assault, drugging her. The whole nine yards."
"I didn't drug her."
"Well now, I didn't say you did. But she's convinced, and Sheriff Carver's got questions." He opens his door and steps out, waiting for me to follow.