Page 83 of One Last Chance

Hello?

I’m getting worried.

Call me before I send out a search party.

Flyyyyynn!

She sent a reply.I’m fine. Safe. Still searching. XO.

She set down the phone, opened the journal, and found the last page she’d read. She hadn’t noticed it before, but a tiny sparrow was drawn at the bottom of the page. Her thumb ran over it.

Reading through the entries, she saw that most of them were about the wolf pack, Koda and Luna and the pups. And then?—

Met a trail guide today near the river. He carried a bear gun and had another man with him. The other man called him a name—something like Indiana, or Iowa. The first guy reminded me of Slade. Handsome, but dangerous. I think they’re poaching.

Poachers. She hadn’t thought about that, but it made sense.

Her sister had drawn something on the page again. Not a sparrow—it looked like a wolf with a tribal tattoo woven into the hair at its neck. She ran her thumb over it.

Her phone rang.Eve. Wow, talk about hovering. She picked it up.

“What? I said I was okay.”

“Five words—that’s all I get? It’s been five days, Flynn. And radio silence?”

“Sorry. I was in the bush.” Seemed like the simplest explanation.

A pause. “I don’t know what that means, but I’m going to assume you were searching for Kennedy. Anything?”

Where to start?“Maybe. I’m checking into seasonal tourists. And maybe . . . poachers.”

“Listen. Don’t do anything . . . well, don’t be you.”

Funny, in a way she felt moreherthan she ever had. Or maybe a part of her she’d always known existed and had never let free.

“When are you coming home?”

“Why?”

“It’s just that . . . I think we have a copycat on our hands. 1039-style kills. Young women taken from a local bar after hours, found days later in the river—it’s eerie. I could use your brain.”

She drew in a breath.

“Flynn?”

“You’re the one who said I had months of leave.”

“Right. Yes, you do . . . Is there something . . . happening out there I need to know?”

“No!”

“That was too quick.”

“Okay, I might have met someone.” She looked out into the street, and there he was, that someone, heading out of the gift shop.

“An Alaskan woodsman?”

“Sort of. But it . . . I have a life in Minneapolis.”

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