CHAPTER ONE Blake

I gazed through the bug-splattered windshield of my Subaru wagon at the Forest Service pickup truck parked at the end of the logging road. I hadn't expected to see signs of humanity this deep in the Cascade Range. I'd driven about sixty miles northeast out of Seattle and into the Cascades via the North Cascades Highway, down an off-limits gravel road, to get away, and another vehicle wasn't what I'd wanted to be met by.

The Forest Service road was hard to spot from the highway, but I knew it was only a quarter mile past mile-marker 66 heading east. After sixteen miles of gravel road and dodging potholes and large rocks strewn across it, I arrived at the end where I spotted the vehicle. The dark-green Dodge, with the official Seal of the State of Washington stickered to the side of the dusty door, was empty but someone had to be near or in the thick woods beyond.

My dad worked for public lands so I was able to get one of their special permits that allowed someone from the general population to hike and camp on state property, usually forbidden in government-controlled forests. These forests had zero services and were untouched for hundreds of years. Where I was going was primitive and, as far as I knew, the only sign of humanity was a forest-fire search tower located near the peak of the mountain, about a four-mile hike in. It wasn't fire season in Washington yet; in fact, the weather had been damp and cool, but perhaps the tower occupant was there getting set up for the upcoming summer season.

For some reason I remained seated in my car, looking around the perimeter of the small circle of cleared land. Five to six vehicles could fit but the space was tight. I wondered if my old beat-up wagon would be safe overnight. A weird concern considering I'd purchased it with over two hundred thousand miles on it for less than a thousand bucks. The car was used for my outdoor adventures, and this trip was no different with a collection of gear in the back. There was no way I'd drive my new BMW X5 into this type of territory, even though I assumed it would do fine. At least, that's what the salesman said when he'd convinced me to stroke a check for eighty-five grand to buy the SUV.

I was cautious for some reason and turned over my shoulder, looking through the rear glass window at the tree line six feet away from the rear hatch. I turned around. "You sure you wanna do this?" I asked the guy in the rearview mirror, exhaling slowly.

"I don't like you going out there alone, honey," Mom had complained the day before when I'd dropped Millie, my Australian shepherd, off for free doggy daycare with Gramma . "Even your father goes out with a crew because it's dangerous," she'd added, knowing I wasn't going to take her advice because I was a pain in the ass.

I stepped out the door of the car and stood in the silence that blanketed everything for miles in all directions. The air was crisp for late May, and the smell of pine, hemlock, and cedar assaulted my senses. The scent was as strong as the recently purchased deodorizing tree shape I'd hung in the old Subaru. The previous eighty-year-old owner had had six dogs, and I was convinced he'd raised them in the car. He had done a great job Fabreezing the shit out of the cloth interior because I didn't begin to get the real nasal assault for a few days after the bill of sale was handed to me.

At an elevation of nearly forty-eight hundred feet, and with it still being spring in late May, the cool air was also a surprise along with the disturbing quiet of my surroundings. "My favorite weather guy said there's a chance of spring snowfall at elevations over three thousand feet this weekend," Mom had also stated, adding to her laundry list of reasons for me to not go overnight into the forest alone.

In typical fashion, I waved her off and even ignored the weather app on my cell phone, which now showed zero bars of coverage. Cell service had been lost once I got out of civilization about fifty miles back in the small town of Arlington. I'd stopped at one of my fave roadside drive-ins in the tiny town for one of their famous blackberry milkshakes. It was there while sitting at an abandoned picnic table that I noticed I had one bar left.

The lack of cell service didn't matter to me. I had no one to text or send sweet messages to anymore. He'd died a year ago, and I was three days away from the first anniversary of that awful day. Another reason Mom didn't want me disappearing into the woods: to hide from the pain, something I'd been doing ever since the dreadful call. In fact, I'd stopped answering the phone these days. I wished I'd ignored it a year ago as well.