Epilogue

Dear Reader

Excerpt from Dangerous Texas Hideout by Virginia Vaughan

ONE

Waves splashed onto the rocky coast of the remote Alaskan coastline that Elsie Montgomery called home, their predictable pattern usually able to ease her mind. No matter what, the waves rolled in and out, soothing in their regularity, something she desperately needed today. Elsie hated days that didn’t go as planned, when she wasn’t enough. Instead of tearstained faces mixed with smiles, there would be eyes avoiding glances, hushed words. Spoken and unspoken apologies for something out of all of their control.

Today’s search and rescue mission had turned into a recovery. It always felt like a personal defeat.

But Elsie had dealt with them before, she reminded herself as she dug her hands into her husky Willow’s fur. She needed the softness of it between her fingers, something to ground herself in this moment as her heartbeat pounded and she started to fight against the tightness in her chest. She hated failure, hated to lose...

Was it worse on the heels of yesterday’s success? She didn’t know. She sat by the shore until the sunshine faded into late summer night. A glance at her watch showed ten o’clock, time for her to go inside. Her body needed to rest, even if her mind refused to shut down. It might be another long night of crossword puzzles and a mug full of hot Tang.

Elsie eased open the door of her cabin, loving the low creak it made. Partially because it was nostalgic, old-fashioned and made her feel connected to the cabin, which had been built well over fifty years ago. And partially because, practically speaking, it made it difficult for someone to break in without her hearing them. Not that that was a major concern, but Elsie lived alone and liked to be prepared for all contingencies, so she couldn’t help but think it.

She walked to the kitchen, pausing to pour a glass of water, and glanced down at today’s newspaper while she took a long sip. “Local Woman and Dog Rescue Missing Five-Year-Old.” In the photo, her smiling face was pressed against Willow’s. She hated the publicity, but her best friend, Lindsay, a journalist for the local newspaper, had reminded her that the family wanted to celebrate, and she was allowing them to do so when she gave the interview and permission for a picture.

She poured Willow a bowl of dog food and watched, her mind wandering, while the dog ate her well-deserved meal.

Elsie had consented to the article, but it didn’t mean she liked the spotlight. Something in her almost recoiled from the attention. It was enough to know that what she did mattered, that she and Willow had helped find someone else who had been lost. Because if there was anything Elsie understood, it was being lost.

Of course, that had been years ago...being abandoned on an island many nautical miles away from here, closer to Kodiak Island than Homer, found almost coincidentally, because someone had happened to be fishing in a remote area. By all logic, she should have died when she was three years old, wearing her too-big purple rain jacket, alone in the Alaskan wilderness. But someone had found her. Maybe that was why Elsie had decided to dedicate her life to rescuing others who were lost. She knew, with all that was within her, what that was like.

If only she understood the concept of being found as easily...

Desperate to put her thoughts anywhere besides today’s failed rescue mission and her own past, she walked to her bedroom. She’d skipped dinner, but the protein bar she’d eaten earlier had quelled her hunger. Besides, the unease inside her wouldn’t let her eat.

She could call Lindsay. Her best friend since childhood, Lindsay lived on the other side of the bay, where the town was. Most people lived there, though Elsie and a few others had cabins or houses in this more remote area. Her friend had questioned her when she’d decided to buy her small cabin after high school graduation with money she’d saved working in the summers, rather than stay in town. Elsie hadn’t had a good answer for why she craved the space. She simply knew that the cabin was the only home she could afford—it had needed significant repairs but she’d been able to accomplish those over time—and that ultimately she felt safer outside, among the tall spruce trees and wilderness, than she did in a town, even a small one. It bothered her in some ways that she felt like this. And she wondered, as she did with most things that she didn’t understand, if it was tied to her past. To her time on the remote island. And what had come before.

Elsie climbed into bed and reached for the novel that sat on her bedside table. Agatha Christie. Somehow an old mystery on a day like today made everything make more sense.

Prayer probably would, too... She could practically hear Lindsay’s voice saying it, not with judgment but with a smile. A reminder intended to help. After Elsie had been rescued from the island and had been hauled from Children’s Services office to Children’s Services office, she’d gone into foster care in town, Destruction Point, Alaska. The small town was a boat or plane ride from Homer, Alaska, just beyond the town of Seldovia. Her foster parents had lived next door to a family with two kids close to Elsie’s age, Lindsay and her insufferable older brother, Wyatt. She’d spent enough time with their family to be exposed to their faith, something that was important to Lindsay and her parents, though maybe not Wyatt.

Elsie had always tried to be polite about their faith, though she didn’t understand it. She knew it concerned her friend, though she couldn’t quite understand why. She was respectful of Lindsay’s beliefs. Lindsay never seemed judgmental about it, only...sad?

Another topic she didn’t want to think about tonight. She flipped onto her side and turned the book’s pages until she reached her spot.

Usually she could lose herself in a book, but Elsie struggled to focus. Beside her, Willow wasn’t as relaxed as usual, either, periodically raising her head to look around the room as though she were expecting something to happen.

“You can’t wind down, either, huh? You’re okay, girl. Go to sleep.” She reached down and ruffled the fur on the dog’s neck, but the husky didn’t relax into the mattress as she usually would have. Instead her muscles felt tense under Elsie’s hands, as though she was ready to spring into action.

“What is it?” Elsie whispered, feeling her own muscles tense in response. This dog was more than a pet or even a work partner. Willow was her lifeline in the wilderness, her eyes and ears. Elsie herself was not unskilled in tracking or wilderness survival skills, but it was Willow’s senses and perception that made them an incredible team, well-known for their track record of finding people during those golden hours when survival was still likely. Elsie, like most human searchers, had too many thoughts during a search, the clock ticking from the moment someone disappeared. Three weeks without food, three days without water, three hours without shelter in extreme weather conditions. Willow didn’t have to worry about that, didn’t have that kind of noise crowding her brain. In essence, dogs didn’t overthink. They used their noses, their senses, their training, and they did their job nearly flawlessly. In all her years of K-9 search and rescue—a decade at this point—Elsie had never seen a dog make a wrong decision. Their instincts, especially Willow’s instincts, were dependable.

Which was why when Willow stood and started to growl, chills chased down Elsie’s spine. Then the low, slow creak of the heavy wooden door confirmed it.

Someone was inside her cabin.

Elsie swallowed hard against the pounding of her heart, made herself breathe deeply. Slow everything down. Painstakingly, conscious of every shift of her body, every movement that could potentially make noise and alert someone to her presence, she set her book on the nightstand, then reached to turn off the bedside table lamp. Willow’s eyes were just as effective in the dark as the light, and Elsie hoped it might put whoever was inside her house at a disadvantage.

She herself preferred the darkness also. It was so much easier to hide.

Flashes of something stirred in her mind. A memory of a memory of a dream? More like a nightmare. It was like an impression of darkness. A closet? Gnawing hunger in her stomach. Hiding. Hoping no one would find her.

The thought—memory?—distressed her. Elsie had always wanted to be found...hadn’t she? Didn’t everyone?

She slipped off the bed onto the floor, feeling her way along the wall, debating whether to wait here or move toward the hallway.

Willow had stopped growling. She had positioned herself between Elsie and the door. To move anywhere else in the house would put them both in even more danger. So she waited.

A creak on the floorboards, and Elsie was certain the sound was moving away from her. She risked tiptoeing back toward the bedside table and grabbed her phone. Shielding the brightness of the screen from the doorway, she texted Lindsay.

Someone’s inside my house. Going to try to call 911.

Then she pressed the numbers 9-1—

Creaking. Closer.

She pressed another 1, then set the phone facedown.

“911, what’s your emergency?...911...what’s...?” The voice was muffled by the carpet, then by the pillow Elsie dropped on top of it.

“Stop hiding, Elsie. We were always going to find you. You were never supposed to survive. It’s time to stop hiding now.” The voice was a man’s. Low, rough, nondescript.

No one she recognized.

Willow leaned forward in the darkness, and when Elsie reached out a hand, she could feel the dog’s body begin to shake.

Elsie took a slow breath in. Let it out.

Willow yelped.

Elsie tried to run, but it was too late. Hands clasped her face. She fought, struggled, until they moved to her neck, started to tighten. She let out a scream.

Snarling. Growling.

This time it was the intruder who yelped, his hands coming loose from Elsie’s neck. Willow, trained in protection as well as search and rescue, was doing well.

But Elsie’s neck throbbed and panic nearly paralyzed her. Willow might be trained for this, but she wasn’t.

Please let 911 have sent someone on the way... She prayed, for the first time she could remember, and continued to fight against the darkness, scrambling away from the intruder and hoping she’d be able to hide from him until help arrived.

Wyatt listened to the dispatcher’s voice on the radio as he finished off a bowl of after-dinner cereal. Working as a contract pilot for the Alaska State Troopers and several other organizations meant that it was useful to know what was happening in the area. Besides, it wasn’t like he had anything else going on. It was listen to the radio or sit on the couch doing nothing. Eat. Sleep. Work. He needed to get a life. At least, that was what his sister told him every time they talked. She didn’t understand that he couldn’t risk going back to his old life, partying, only caring about himself. It was easier to just...be alone.

“But maybe I need a few friends or a hobby or something,” he said as he carried his bowl to the sink. There had to be a balance between who he’d been in high school and the decade beyond and...this. He was thirty-one and living like an eighty-year-old hermit.

Sven, his massive brown malamute, groaned from his place on the couch.