Page 84 of The House of Cross

“A kilometer,” I said. “I can make that.”

We continued on the trail and reached that cabin we’d seen on Google Earth. There were seven snowmobiles already there, riderless and idling. Smoke was coming out of the chimney.

“They already have a fire going for us,” Fagan said. “Let’s talk to these folks and see what they know. Leave your sled running.”

It sounded like a great plan to me, and I hurried after her. Inside, we found three women and four men huddled around an old-fashioned potbellied stove, their helmets and gloves off.

“I’m Officer Fagan with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police,” she said after pulling her helmet off.

With the arms of his coverall tied around his waist, revealing a very buff torso, a bald, cocoa-skinned guy wearing a spandex beanie smiled as he stood up. In a British accent, he said, “Lucas Bean. You coming to rescue us, then?”

“Do you need rescuing?” Fagan said.

“We did last night,” one woman said in a British accent. “Got trapped in that other cabin in the storm. Had to sleep in our gear. It’s not as airtight as this place.”

Bean nodded. “We had enough food to last, though. And water. And gas.”

“Heading out?” Fagan said.

“Soon as our fingers thaw,” the woman said.

I said, “You see anyone else back in here?”

“In that storm?” Bean said. “Not a chance.”

“Are you all from other countries?” Fagan said.

“From all over,” Bean said, smiling again. “Looking for new trails to ride, and I think we got in a wee bit over our heads.”

“Awaybit over our heads, Lucas,” another woman said firmly.

There was something slightly awkward about Mr. Bean and his friends, but then again, they’d passed the night in an uninsulated shack with cracks in the wall at twenty below zero. While they dressed to leave for the trailhead at Meacham, we stood around the woodstove until I could feel my feet and hands again.

After drinking a cup of hot coffee, I told Officer Fagan I was ready to push on. The Mountie damped down the firebox and we went outside and found Bean and his group getting ready to ride out.

“Serious power sleds,” Bean said, gesturing at the RCMP snowmobiles.

“Meant to get us there and back again,” Fagan said. “Be safe, Mr. Bean.”

“You as well, Officer Fagan,” he said, tugging on his helmet. “You as well.”

CHAPTER 63

AROUND ELEVEN THAT MORNING,with the sun nearing its zenith in the impossibly blue skies, we were on what Officer Fagan described as a “rarely used side trail,” roughly one mile and several thousand vertical feet from where Bree’s cell phone had transmitted more than two days before.

Fagan was not kidding that the route was rarely used. She had to duck down behind her windshield to avoid getting whipped by the thin saplings overgrowing the trail.

I did the same, feeling the saplings grab at the sled runners and the sleeves and legs of my coveralls. More than once, I thought one of my boots had gotten snarled in the brush and would pull me off the machine.

Finally, we crested a knoll. Fagan stopped her sled at the edgeof a ravine and faced the steep, snowy flank of a mountain on the other side.

She got out binoculars and looked all around us. “Far as we can go,” she said, climbing off the snowmobile and lifting the seat.

“Where do you think she was?” I asked, getting off my sled into knee-deep snow.

“I think I can show you,” the Mountie said. She pulled out a padded bag with a ballistic cloth exterior and unzipped it, revealing a compact Swarovski spotting scope and a tripod. After several tries, she fit them together and aimed the scope up the mountain.

“That’s roughly where I put the transmission location,” Fagan said at last, standing back. “You’re looking at it at sixty-five-power magnification.”

---