Maya was nowhere to be found. The young woman had left a note, saying, simply, Out.

  Blake wasn’t sure how to take that. It might possibly indicate a step in the right direction. Maybe Maya was out searching for work. Jobs were plentiful now; Maya could probably find one easily, even with her juvenile record and bad habits. Or maybe she was out finding another couch to sleep on. It was about time; she’d been sponging off Sam’s goodwill for way too long. But he was worried that she might be out searching for the two criminals who’d torn up the house, or out trying to hide from them. Maya was the lure that had brought them here.

  The Bellingham police had confirmed that neither Eaze nor James was in custody, and Maya was right: The officer he spoke to didn’t seem too concerned about the situation, telling Blake to keep the police informed if the pair showed up again.

  Peering into the backyard, Blake saw that Maya had done her best to straighten her bent tent poles and had patched one of the poles as well as the nylon tent walls with duct tape. The sleeping bag had vanished. When he laundered the filthy kitchen towels the invaders had trampled on the floor, he found a few strands of polyester fiber in the lint trap of the dryer, so most likely, Maya had dried her sleeping bag and stuffed it back inside her tent.

  It was probably a good thing that Maya intended to stay outside, even if it was a cold and damp spring. With luck, that Eaze character would be arrested and put in jail. How Maya could ever have taken up with him was a complete mystery. Blake had no idea how the James mutt fit into the picture. He shook his head. If his daughter Hannah ever hitchhiked down the same self-destructive roads that Maya had recently taken, he didn’t know what he’d do.

  Maya’s efforts to clean up seemed to be limited to sweeping and mopping the floor and doing her own laundry. He busied himself trying to set the house back in order, taking photos and making a list of destroyed items, taking the discards out to the trash, saving the things that could possibly be salvaged. Maybe the sofa cushions could be covered again with new fabric? Or would that cost more than a new sofa? A broken chair leg could be glued back together. He mourned the loss of cherished books, their pages stuck together now with maple syrup. He’d miss the green wine glasses and the blue ceramic platter, now shattered on the floor; he had purchased those. His renter’s insurance might cover them if Sam’s homeowner’s didn’t.

  Attitude of gratitude, he thought, grimacing at the triteness of that phrase. So Claude had eaten a hole through his heart, like a worm in an apple. That was at least half his fault, wasn’t it? He had a daughter and a good friend and housemate he loved, a decent place he could afford to live, and a job he enjoyed.

  He and Hannah could tour the local thrift stores and search for new treasures. And he had his health, no small thing these days.

  Eaze and the other scumbag had emptied the maple syrup, but they’d overlooked a bottle of molasses. Maybe he’d make his molasses cookies. Sam loved those. So did Hannah. Blake pulled out an unbroken bowl and the mixer.

  Claude had adored his special recipe, too. Blake laid his head on the kitchen countertop and cried.

  Chapter 31

  The next day, Sam read over the draft of article she’d thrown together for Out There, determined to finish so she could get back to the hospital. It was embarrassingly evident how absent her brain had been the day before. The story contained so many errors; their for there, its for it’s, missing pronouns, misspellings. The editor would probably change all the instances of he and she to they; her and his to their. Although she had to admit that they and their was efficiently non-gender-specific, to her those terms sounded like an individual had multiple personality disorder. Maybe English needed to create some new words for possessives and pronouns, the way the kids on her Wilderness Challenge expedition had made up new swear words when they weren’t allowed to utter the typical ones.

  She fixed the typos but decided to leave all the politically correct challenges to the editor. She’d just clicked Send when her phone chimed. She expected Michael Fredd to be asking yet again when she’d be finished with the piece.

  But the caller ID on Sam’s new cell displayed the name Adam Steele. Did she want to answer? Before Chase, the ambitious reporter had been her lover. Years later, on several occasions, he’d been her collaborator in reporting stories that needed to be told. But Adam was often her nemesis when it came to publicizing details she’d rather keep quiet. Sam hadn’t heard from Adam since the nightmare of the search for Maya’s half sister, Jade Silva, at the Arizona-Mexico border wall.

  “Hello?” she finally answered.

  “Hello! Hello!” echoed Zeke from the kitchen, followed by “Alexa, set re-eyender.”

  Reminder? Maybe lips were required for M sounds. Thank God she had no smart device in the house. Lucky man, Blake had left for work before she uncovered the parrot’s cage.

  “I can’t believe you still don’t call me!”

  “Hi, Adam. And how are you?” She failed to keep the note of sarcasm from her voice.

  “After all the stories we’ve done together. Utah, Galápagos, Arizona. And now you’ve been involved in the biggest avalanche disaster to hit the Western US in a decade, and you still don’t call me.”

  This greeting was so typical of Adam Steele. Everything was about the next exciting news story. “Frankly, it didn’t cross my mind.”

  “Didn’t cross your mind? You’ve got to be kidding! I bet you’re writing that story right now!”

  Sam stared at the words on the screen, a thread of needless guilt weaving its way into her brain. How dare he make this sound like some sort of game! “People died, Adam.”

  “Nine, I heard. So far.”

  Nine? So far? Would there be more? Sam rubbed a thumb across her lips. The purple-shoe babysitter, the upside-down man . . . How many others had she not discovered in the collapsed building? Were they alive when she crawled out? If they had been, she didn’t want to know; she already felt guilty enough for surviving. “You shouldn’t sound so eager, Adam.”

  “Sorry.” He didn’t sound remorseful at all.

  “Gonna trade you for a dog,” Zeke yelped. That was a new one. But maybe a good idea.

  “What’s all that noise in the background?”

  “Radio.” She rose from her chair and closed her office door, muffling the parrot’s chatter. She continued, “Dozens are injured. A whole ski lodge was destroyed. They haven’t even accounted for everyone yet.”

  “Yes, I heard that people are still missing and they’re not finished digging out.”

  She could tell that Adam was trying not to sound too enthusiastic, but of course he would be thrilled at the chance to cover a developing story instead of summarizing one that had already been wrapped up.

  How many bodies were still buried on the ski slopes? How many in the parking lot? She was relieved it wasn’t her job to account for everyone who had been at the ski area that day. “It’s a major disaster, Adam,” she emphasized.

  “Well, yeah.” Now his tone was sarcastic. “The phrase ‘if it bleeds, it leads’ pretty much sums up the news biz.” He didn’t admit it, but of course that was the reason he called her. A hotshot reporter would not be interested in her private disasters. At least Adam was honest about it.

  “And you were there, Avalanche Angel, rescuing victims right and left.”

  She snorted. “Hardly. I crawled through a collapsed building and located a few people—”

  “Exactly!” She heard muffled sounds in the background—people talking, shuffling noises—and she pictured Adam gesturing to his film crew as he spoke to her.

  “I just told the real rescuers about the victims I found and where they were.”

  “You brought out a baby!” Was that a faint whoop of excitement in the background? Who else was in the room with him?

  How could she have forgotten about Baby Emma? “Yeah, I guess I did do that. That was the easiest part.”

  “You were there, throughout it all.”

  “Hardly a major accomplishment, being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Along with dozens of other people.”

  “I want the whole story, babe. Your story.”

  “I’m not your babe. And actually, I wasn’t even there when the avalanche hit the ski hut. I and a friend were miles away, on another mountain, buried in another avalanche.”

  “You were buried? In another avalanche?”

  “Yes.”

  “Even better!” he chortled.

  Pulling the phone away from her ear, she stared at it with dismay. How could she have ever dated this man?

  “What was that like?”

  Sam felt a piece of ice slide down her spine and shook her head. She didn’t want to dwell on that memory. “I managed to get myself out.”

  He laughed. “Obviously.”

  She put the phone back to her ear, miffed that he was making light of that horrendous experience. “My friend survived, too. But we barely made it out alive. Two other people who were there didn’t, and neither did a wolverine.”

  “Really? There were others buried in your personal avalanche?”

  “Two people. And a wolverine,” she reiterated.

  “And nobody else knows about this?”

  “I told a cop yesterday. I don’t have a clue what he will do with that information.”

  “Ummm.” She heard him mumbling something to someone close by. After a moment, he said to her, “Good. There’s nothing online about that. As far as the hut thing goes, there are plenty of others who were at the ski area when the avalanche hit, so I can get their stories.”

  She frowned. The hut thing?

  “But your story is unique, right?” He sounded eager.

  “I suppose. I already promised a story to Out There about crawling into the collapsed building. I just delivered it a few minutes ago.”

  Adam sighed dramatically, then, after a brief pause, said, “Out There is only a print ‘zine, right?”

  “Out There is my employer. There’s an online version of the magazine, too.”

  “Okay, internet too.” More muffled sounds in the background. “I’m reading their stats now. Pretty small subscriber base. Local.”

  “But important, Adam. Especially to me. Covering outdoor stories for them is my only regular income.”

  “That’s fine. You haven’t signed any sort of exclusive agreement, have you?”

  She was pretty sure a contract like that would never have occurred to the staff at Out There. “No. We have a pretty informal arrangement.”

  “Good. I’ve seen the article in the Times, obviously, Avalanche Angel.”

  That was the second time he’d called her that. “What?”

  “Seattle Times,” he repeated, sounding impatient. “Your deal with Out There is just to write about the ski hut, right?” He didn’t wait for her response, but she could hear the faint echo that signaled that he’d put the conversation on speakerphone when next he asked, “Now, what about the two other people you say are buried up there? Who were they?”

  “Adam, take this off speaker, please.”

  She waited for the click that indicated he’d switched back before she continued, “A young man and woman, or really, just a girl. I don’t know their names. They were in the same avalanche that Gina and I were caught in. Along with a wolverine.”

  “I want it, Sammie. I need this story. You’ve got to give me an exclusive for a TV special.”

  She could hear Adam speaking in a muffled voice to someone. He’d either covered the microphone or lowered the volume on his cell as he murmured, “Bellingham. Washington State. W-A, not M-A. Yes, I think there’s an airport.”

  Was he coming up here? Adam and his crew would poke their noses—and their cameras—into everyone and everything she knew. Would that include Blake? Claude? Chase and Nicole? Maya?

  Then he was back. “I can give you two thousand dollars.”

  “I don’t know, Adam. We have to come to an agreement about what you can cover and who you can talk to. This is a sensitive subject, and the story is still evolving. Like you said, they’re still digging out up there.”

  “I’ll make it three. Three thousand dollars, for a couple of days work. Only hours, really. You can’t turn that down.”

  He knew her too well. She hadn’t managed to find any new contract work this month, and Out There had promised her only a few short assignments. Three thousand dollars could make a world of difference in her life, especially with all the replacements the house needed now. As soon as the thought streaked through her head, she felt like an avaricious money-grubber, eager to take advantage of a tragedy. She chewed her thumb as she considered.

  Putting aside his attitude about tragic stories and his seeming callousness to survivors and his too-frequent omission of clarifying details, Adam’s reporting had always been factual. Sam admired that. The same could not be said of many news stories these days.

  If Adam didn’t cover the story, the odds were that someone else would, and who knew how it would come out? The way the news was reported in the current political climate, the wolverine poachers might be portrayed as heroes saving the world from dangerous wildlife, and the avalanche victims deserving of their deaths for some obscure political reason Sam couldn’t even imagine right now.

  “Do we have a deal, Sammie?”

  He’d bulldoze his way into the situation, no matter what she told him now. “We need to talk, Adam. And you have to promise to include the wolverine.”

  “Great! We’ll be in Bellingham tomorrow.” He ended the call.

  Sam glared at her phone for a long moment, wondering what she’d just gotten herself into.

  * * * * *

  As she purchased a copy of the Seattle Times in the grocery store, Sam was grateful that nobody gave her a second look. In the hospital, she sat in Chase’s room, listening to the beeps of the cardiac monitor and his quiet breathing.

  “Chase, your sister Raven called me this morning,” she told him. “The FBI told her that you’re in the hospital here. She said to tell you that she loves you, but she can’t come visit. She has COVID. A mild case, but she’s in quarantine. And she doesn’t know where your brother Wolf is right now. And your parents are somewhere in the Mediterranean on a cruise, believe it or not.”

  She hoped that news didn’t make Chase feel as if his family had deserted him.

  “I’m sorry I don’t know more about your family,” she told him. “And if you want me to call other people, you’ve never told me about them. You have so many parts of you that are private, Chase. I, on the other hand, am an open book. I’ve told you everything.”

  She hesitated there, knowing that wasn’t true. She’d never told anyone about the day of her mother’s death, about how she’d found her father standing over her mother, his gaze fixed on his wife’s finally serene expression, his arms clutching a pillow to his chest. Sam had never asked him about that pillow in all these years. She never would.

  She told him about Nicole doing well and Claude still comatose a few doors down, about her wrecked house and Maya’s criminal friends. “I should have stayed at the ski area, Chase. If I hadn’t gone with Gina to rescue Feisty, all of us might have left before the avalanche.”

  Even without anyone to tell her so, Sam knew she was babbling.

  “Feisty’s a wolverine, by the way. Gina’s my friend who volunteers on a wolverine research project. I’ve gone with her a couple of times to set up cameras. But this time Feisty had been trapped.”

  She thought about describing how the poacher had been buried, how she’d been buried, but decided Chase he didn’t need any more stories of snow and injury filling his thoughts. If he was actually listening.

  “Wolverines aren’t on the endangered species list, Chase. But they should be. We can’t afford to lose a single one. And it’s illegal to trap or kill one unless it’s self-defense, and in this case, only Feisty would have the right to claim that.”

  There was no indication that he heard a word she said.

  “And the worst part is that we didn’t save Feisty.” She stopped there, imagining the cage entombed in a concrete bunker of snow, only a few puffs of air left.

  At this point in her soliloquy, it would have been nice to hear something like, “I’m sure you gave it your all, Summer.” Even if that wasn’t true.

  Chase did not respond when Sam stroked his arm or pushed his hair away from his forehead. His beard was growing quickly; he’d hate that. He often had a five o’clock shadow, and sometimes shaved twice a day.

  Was he just heavily sedated, or was he well on his way to dying? She watched his chest rise and fall. No, not dying. At least not yet.

  She scanned the newspaper article about the avalanches caused by the earthquake in the area around Mount Baker. The article also called the volcano by its native name, Koma Kulshan, and she wondered if using two names confused readers. Many small slides had been observed in areas surrounding the mountain, but as most of the terrain was wilderness and the popular trailheads were still inaccessible in the spring snow, the only known casualties had been near the Mt. Baker Ski Area.

  The front-page photo was of the destroyed Raven Hut, with trauma-stricken bystanders huddled around the structure, a few in the act of pulling pieces of debris from the edges, and others embracing one another.

  Then she spied a smaller section heading, An Avalanche Angel. That section of the article detailed how Summer Westin had crawled into the collapsed building and extricated the baby, and then how she’d alerted the equipment crews and ski patrol about three survivors inside.

  Blake must have told someone her name. The article included a photo of one of the ski patrol guys handing Baby Emma off to her mother as Blake yanked Sam from the debris tunnel like a wad of wet washing. That was embarrassing.

  Another photo depicted her waving from the top of the collapsed hut. Fortunately, neither photo was good enough quality to recognize her face. She had never been photogenic, but exhausted and injured, Sam was sure she’d been more bedraggled than usual that day.