She left the car and strode toward the house. Her choice. Right or wrong. To hell with making anyone proud. She knew what she had to do and nothing and no one were going to stop her.
Thirty-Eight
Despite the fact that the official time of the sun setting was still more than an hour away, up here on the mountain, surrounded by ancient pines and towering hemlocks, it was already twilight. Leah left her car, inhaling the scent of the evergreens and embracing the cooler air compared to down in the valley below. She entered the log cabin that served as the state forest’s office. The lone ranger on duty—a woman in her fifties who seemed resentful of human visitors intruding into the serenity of her forest—verified her reservation on the computer.
“Kinda last minute, isn’t it? One night, right?” she asked as she ran Leah’s credit card.
“What’s your check-out process?” Leah asked.
“Return the key by noon and you won’t get charged another night. If you leave a mess, we charge a cleaning fee.”
“So the cabin has been cleaned since its last occupant?”
The ranger cast an irritated glance at a clipboard. “Should’ve been. We do a basic cleaning and linen change between guests, but the weekend guy didn’t mark it down. Some guy had that cabin booked the past few weeks, but I don’t remember ever seeing anyone there during patrols. Anyway, if you find a mess, let me know and I’ll move you. Too late tonight for me to come clean myself; I’ve still got to make the rounds of the RV park and campground.”
“I’ll be fine, don’t worry.” Leah gave the ranger her best smile. “I don’t suppose you could tell me who was staying in the cabin?”
“Nope.” The ranger was rummaging through a drawer and didn’t even bother looking up. “Can only find one key, that good enough?”
“Sure, no problem.” Leah accepted the old-fashioned bronze key.
“There’s two ways to get there. From here, this is the easiest.” The ranger traced a route on the map. “Count your turns because once you’re past the campground most of the roads don’t have signs. If you’re heading into town for groceries or the like, this other way is a more direct route—but the gates are locked at nine p.m., so you need to make it back by then. If you run late, come back here and use the call box, I’ll come let you in.”
“So there’s not a check-in or guard booth anywhere except here?” She wasn’t as much interested in security as the fact that the cabin could be accessed without anyone knowing. Making it perfect as a hideout for Beth. Leah suspected that if the baby hadn’t come early, forcing Beth out of hiding, no one might have ever known Beth was even there.
“Guard?” the ranger scoffed. “Against what?” She squinted at Leah. “You do know you’re entering a wilderness area—this isn’t a Holiday Inn. You have camped before, right?”
“I know what I’m doing.” Leah felt a bit offended. While in college, she’d often spent her vacations backpacking and hiking in places a lot wilder and less civilized than Craven Peak. “I grew up here, I’ve been all over these mountains.”
Still, the ranger seemed doubtful. “There’s no phone in the cabin and cell reception is iffy at best. Come back and find me if you change your mind.”
“I’ll be fine, thanks.” Leah took her map and key and left.
By the time she found the cabin—a squat cube of a building, its dark-stained logs chinked with white caulking and a brown metal roof—the sun had almost completely vanished. Leah decided to start by retracing Beth’s steps while she still had some light left.
She oriented her map. The fairgrounds weren’t that far—a quarter of a mile—and there was a path leading to them from the road below the cabin. From the brochure accompanying the map it appeared that the meadow which had hosted the fair was also home to non-denominational Sunday services as well as other events including wildlife lectures and an astronomy star-gazing class. She made note of the latter for Emily and Nate as she walked down the dirt drive and turned onto the gravel road. A hundred feet up the road she saw a sign pointing to a trail labeled To The Meadow and marked by yellow blazes on the trees. Good thing because the foliage was so thick that she saw no signs of the fairground until she reached the old split-rail fence that formed its boundary.
At first she wondered at Beth’s ability to climb the fence but then spotted a gate a few yards down. She crossed through it and put the map away, switching to her phone and looking at Nate’s photos, orienting her position using trees with distinguishing features as landmarks. This had to be about where Beth had tossed her phone. Leah began pacing the area, scanning for any signs of the phone in the grass. Thankfully the meadow had been mowed before the fair.
On her second circuit she was rewarded with a glint of glass. She ran to it. A phone. It had to be Beth’s. The screen was black and when she tried to turn it on it didn’t respond. Hopefully all it needed was a fresh battery charge. Pocketing her prize, she jogged back to the gate and followed the trail to the cabin, using her phone’s flashlight to guide her steps. It was completely dark by the time she climbed the cabin’s rough-hewn porch steps and slid the key into the lock. The key turned but the knob didn’t—she hadn’t unlocked it, she’d locked it.
Which meant the cabin had been left unlocked—Beth may have been the last person to leave. If so, if the ranger had neglected to come to clean, then there might be some clues among Beth’s belongings. Eager to test her theory, Leah reversed the direction of the key and the lock popped open. She turned the knob, pushed the door open,
