Page 13 of Saving Mr. Bell

He came a few steps closer, his expression one of concern. “I wish you had done that.” He jerked his head in the direction I’d been going in. “Hopefully, you’ve seen for yourself that there’s nothing close to the cabin. Nothing but trees, anyway. There’sa river if you go west. But apart from that, it’s just trees and wildlife.”

“Promise me you’re not lying. Swear on your father’s life.” Arlo’s hat was too low for me to see his eyebrows, but I’d have bet anything he’d raised one in the way I remembered him doing.

“My father’s life?”

Something dreadful occurred to me. “He is still alive?” Arlo had talked a lot about his father during the couple of weeks we’d spent together when the cameras hadn’t been rolling. It was his father being an actor that had resulted in Arlo spending so much time in his formative years on film or TV sets. Without that, he’d theorized that a role behind the camera would never have occurred to him. He’d met his mentor when the man had filmed a documentary about Arlo’s father, and the rest was history, Arlo working as his number two until solo opportunities had come his way at a tender age.

“Yeah, he’s still alive.”

Relief slammed into me, sharp enough to make me forget for a minute how cold I was. “Good.”

Arlo smiled like I’d said something funny. “I’ll pass on your congratulations for his continued breathing next time I see him. You know, when he flies to Austria to visit me in prison.” He wanted me to say I wouldn’t call the police on him, but I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t yet. “I swear on my father’s life,” Arlo said, “that the closest cabin is twenty miles away. Possibly more. It’s not like I measured it.” He looked up as the universe decided it would be the perfect time to make it snow again, large flakes dropping from the sky.

I heaved out a sigh. “For fuck’s sake! Has it not snowed enough?”

“I don’t think it works like that.”

“Well, it should.” I sounded like the spoiled musician everyone liked to think I was. But in this case, it felt warranted.

“Let’s go back to the cabin,” Arlo urged. “We can get warm and talk.”

The sensible part of my brain knew that was the only option, but the stubborn part refused to admit defeat that easily. “I’ve come this far.”

“You’ve come a mile at most,” Arlo said. “One down. Nineteen to go.”

I glared at him. “There’s no need to disparage my achievements.”

He grinned as he held his gloved hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Okay, I won’t. I also won’t point out that you’re going in completely the wrong direction for the neighbor’s cabin?”

“You don’t know that.”

“I’m pretty sure.”

“Maybe someone built a cabin you don’t know about.” I picked a random direction and gestured that way. “It’s probably just over there.”

“Maybe.”

“And,” I said. However, I’d been going to finish that sentence blanked out of existence as a distant howl punctured the silence. I automatically moved closer to Arlo. “Was that…?”

“A wolf.”

Another howl answered the first, this one sounding closer, the hair on the back of my neck standing on end. “Wolves,” I corrected. “I thought you were making it up about Austria having wolves.”

Arlo shook his head so vehemently that for a moment, I feared it might go on forever. “I wasn’t sure, but…”

“You were making the bears up, though, right?” Another headshake, my heart dropping somewhere close to my frozen feet. “Fuck!”

“Yeah,” Arlo agreed.

We both started back in the direction we’d come, the tracks making it easy to retrace our steps. I was shivering now, the pause in movement having dropped my core temperature lower. “Can bears and wolves co-exist in the same habitat?”

“I have no fucking clue.”

“Next time you abduct someone, perhaps you should do more research.”

“I’m not planning on there being a next time. I wasn’t really planning on there being a first time.”

“I feel so special.” Another howl had us both stumbling, the distance back to the cabin suddenly seeming insurmountable. Was that one of the same wolves who’d howled? Or a different one? I bet there were people who could tell. Zoologists or wolf specialists. But as I was neither, in my head there were at least three wolves now prowling the undergrowth. Three hungry wolves who probably ate people.

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