Page 84 of One Last Chance

“Yeah, you do. But what if?—”

“No. No what-ifs.”

“I’m just saying that everything happens for a reason. A purpose. And I know you have to figure out everything, but what if you didn’t? What if you just had a little faith it would work out?”

“I don’t know, Eve. Maybe this whole thing is . . . just . . . Maybe I should come home.”

“Or maybe you should trust that God has a plan.”

Axel came over and sat down opposite her. Smiled.

“See if there’s a pattern to the nights the victims were killed. I gotta go.”

She hung up.

“More river monsters?”

“Something like that. Hey, have you ever heard of a hunting guide called Iowa or Indiana?”

“Idaho?”

“Maybe.”

“He was a poacher—got arrested last year.”

Oh.

“Why?”

“Nothing. It’s in the journal.” She closed the book. “What did you get?”

He pulled out something wrapped in tissue. “The gift shop is having a sidewalk sale. I saw this and thought of you.” He drew a necklace out of the tissue and held it up. A small black bird with veins of green, tiny wings spread. “It’s a sparrow.”

She took it in her hand, stared at it. Ran her thumb over the smooth surface. “Where . . . Is this locally made?”

“I don’t know. Probably. But . . . it’s a sparrow.”

And with his words, something simply took hold inside her.

She might even call it faith.

* * *

Axel didn’t want to pay attention to the storm on the mountain. The one obscuring the peak of Denali and drifting southeast. But a breeze worried the trees, and it picked up their paper plates and tried to toss them from the table.

“Whoa—” He grabbed Flynn’s cup before it went over.

She was too late to stop her plate from frisbeeing away.

He got up and chased it across the deck, out to the street.

“That’s not a good sign.”

A foot stepped on the plate, and he looked up. Shasta Starr stood on the sidewalk, dressed in a pair of jeans, a sweatshirt, her dark hair loose in the wind. “Hey, Axe.”

“Shasta.” He leaned down and picked up the plate. “What do you mean, not a good sign?” But he already knew.

“Storm on the mountain.” She shaded her eyes, gave Denali a grim look. “It moved in fast. Hopefully there are no climbers on the summit.”

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