Page 56 of A Killing Cold

Come with me, Liam Dalton says, and so I do. I walk to the door and stand there in the dark, the snow silvery before me, and I can almost see the shape of two figures—one large, one small—lurching away.

I follow the ghost of Liam Dalton into the woods.

“Keep up,” Liam snaps. He keeps a hard grip around her wrist, and she tries to keep up, she does, but her legs are too short. Every few steps he yanks her along, a rough jerk that makes her shoulder ache. She doesn’t know where they’re going. She’s never been this way before. “Goddamn it,” he growls.

“Where’s Mama?” she asks, plaintive.

He doesn’t answer.

Something moves among the trees, scaring loose a shower of snow and startling me from my recollection.

That girl—she isn’t Dora Scott. She isn’t Theo, either. Like me, she doesn’t have a name. And without a name, she’s no one.

Who are you?I ask her silently.Who am I?

But of course no answer comes.

There’s a light among the trees, coming toward me. I’m not surprised to recognize Mr. Vance’s sturdy build or the inky shadow trotting alongside him. Duchess comes straight over to me and inserts her muzzle into my gloved hand. I might not be a dog person, but I know how to follow orders. I scratch her below the chin and she gives a water buffalo grunt of appreciation.

“She’s decided she likes you,” Mr. Vance observes. “You’re out late.”

“I brought a flashlight this time,” I say helpfully.

“All the same. Probably best you head back to your cabin,” he replies.

I look over my shoulder. I’m not even certain which way I came from. Where I am. I find myself searching the shadows for two sets of tracks—one large, one small.

“You don’t want to go back,” Mr. Vance says. Duchess’s dark eyes watch me, like she’s waiting for my answer. I crouch down, roughing the fur behind her ears, buying myself a few seconds to answer. She looks at Vance and huffs. He scratches the tip of his nose thoughtfully. “Tell you what. Why don’t you come on by my place? I can make you a cup of coffee and get you back when you’re ready.”

“That’s not necessary,” I say. “I’m fine.”

“I wouldn’t feel right leaving a young lady out here alone,” Mr. Vance says, and I suddenly wonder if there was another woman he extended his concern to. He’s been working for the Daltons for decades. He must have been here when she was.

“Okay,” I say, with the slightest nod. Mr. Vance clicks his tongue, and Duchess trots over to him.

“It’s not far,” he says.

His definition and mine might be different. He brings us on a route between the pines, our flashlights making shadows gyre around us, and then to a road—rougher than the one we took up here, only wide enough for a single vehicle.

“I didn’t realize there was another road up here,” I say.

“Not much of one. It’s the long way around, and there’s not much reason to use it,” Mr. Vance says. “It’s more to get at the trails around the other side of the mountain, but it will take you down to Datura if you follow it far enough.”

We walk for a good quarter mile, and here a small cabin comes into view, three vehicles parked in front of it—a Jeep, a four-wheeler, and a Sno-Cat. The heavy-duty option for getting down the mountain in the snow.

Vance unlocks the door and ushers me inside, where I’m immediately hit with the stultifying warmth of a woodstove. The snow melts rapidly from Duchess’s flanks as she shoulders past me, and she leavesperfect damp paw prints as she walks over to the stove, stretches mightily, and flumps down with a contented groan.

Vance chuckles. “Feel free to make yourself comfortable, but I’m afraid Duchess has the best seat in the house,” he says.

It’s not much of a house and the seating is limited. There’s a bed shoved up against one corner and a single armchair, seams worn through and stuffing poking out of the holes. A tiny kitchen table and a pair of chipped white chairs are the only other option. There’s no kitchen, not even a fridge. The only light comes from oil lamps hung on the walls. No electricity either, then. Vance grabs a pot from a cupboard and steps outside. When he returns, the pot is full of snow; he sets it on the stove. I ease myself into the armchair. It creaks under me.

“You live here?” I ask.

“Only during this particular stretch, and now and again when I’m too bushed to make it down the mountain,” he says. “Magnus likes me to be on hand during the winter, particularly if there’s snow like this, though that isn’t often—it’s usually later in the winter it starts getting this bad.”

“Are you from the area?”

“I grew up in Datura,” Vance says. He collects one of the chairs from the “kitchen” and brings it over, settling into it with a sigh. “Wandered away for a few years, but I never found anything worth sticking around for anywhere else. What about you?”

---