Snowbound (20 page)

From the porch, Will and Rachael had an unobstructed view of the entire lake, the floatplane clearly visible at the far end—a piece of red amid all that blinding white.

Will lifted the binoculars to his face as sunlight and frigid air streamed in, adjusting the knobs, bringing the plane into focus.

“Okay, here we go. There are one … two, three … people standing in a foot of water, unloading the cargo pod, throwing duffel bags up onto the bank. They’re all wearing big white parkas, definitely dressed for the weather.”

“Hunters?” Rachael asked.

“They don’t look like hunters.” He drew in a quick shot of air.

“What?”

Will noted the sudden pressure in his chest, behind his eyes, strength flooding out of his legs as approaching footsteps echoed in the lobby.

“What?”

“I recognize one of them,” he said.

“Who?”

“Oh God.”

“Will? Who?”

He lowered the binoculars and stared at his wife. “Javier Estrada just climbed down out of the pilot’s seat.”

“That man you and Kalyn—”

“Yeah.”

“What’s he doing here?”

“What do you think? We took his family, left them for days in a burned-out mall.”

Devlin walked up, stopped between her parents, said, “So did you find out who they are?”

“Bad men,” Rachael said. “Very bad men.”

Will put his arm around Devlin, kissed the top of her head.

“Who is it, Dad?”

“Javier. But we’re gonna be all right, honey,” he said, wondering if the words rang as hollow for Devlin as they felt tumbling out of his mouth. “I need to talk to Mom. Stay here for a minute, okay?” He handed her the binoculars. “Keep an eye on that plane at the end of the lake, and the four men who just climbed out of it.”

• • •

“No, Will. No fucking way. Absolutely not.”

Will and Rachael stood in the corridor, twenty feet down from Kalyn’s room.

“Rachael, we can’t do this on our own.”

“She betrayed you. Tried to trade our
daughter
.”

“I know, but we need her, and we’re running out of time standing here fighting about it.”

Rachael flashed her eyes at the ceiling, her most vehement eye roll.

“Wow, five years since I’ve seen that one,” Will said.

She smiled. “Missed it, huh?”

“I need you to trust me. As bad as Kalyn is and what she did, the man who’s coming here is ten times worse. We’re going to need her.”

“The lesser of the evils. That’s where we’re at?”

“Afraid so.”

Will looked through the peephole, saw Kalyn under the covers, asleep in bed.

“All right.”

Rachael slipped the master key into the lock. It turned, and Will nudged the door open with the barrel of the shotgun.

Kalyn sat up, her face swollen from a night of steady crying.

“We’re in trouble,” Will said.

Kalyn stared back, eyes darkened with shame. “I wanna see my sister. Is she okay?”

“Yes, she’s fine. A plane has landed on the inner lake.” He hesitated, as if by not speaking his name, it might undercut the reality that the man had actually, impossibly, found them, that he was here, less than a mile away. “Javier and three men.”

Kalyn’s face paled, the shame deferring to a crisp alertness, tinged with fear.

“Where are they now? Right out front?”

“No, far end of the lake.”

“And you’re sure it’s him?”

“I took a pair of binoculars from the supply room. There’s no question.”

“Who are the other men?”

“I don’t know. One is Hispanic, maybe another Alpha. Other two are white.”

“Well, we know why they’re here—for what we did to Javier’s family, to him, possibly those men I killed in Fairbanks three days ago.” She threw back the blankets.

“The Alaskan mob?”

“They’re probably cocounsel with the Alphas on this.”

“Aren’t you really the one they—”

“Oh sure. Walk out and explain the situation to them, Will. I dragged you into this. It’s all my fault. I bet they give you a pass, probably even fly you and your family out of here before the shit starts to fly.”

Rachael, Will, and Devlin were following Kalyn down the first-floor corridor.

“All right,” she said. “So here’s how I see it. What do they want?”

“To kill us.”

“No, you’re rushing ahead. Think of a more concrete motivation.”

“I don’t know.”

“First, they want to get inside this lodge. We want to keep them out, or at least know if they make it in and be ready to deal with that.”

“Okay.”

“So we start thinking about all the points of entry.”

“How many are there?”

“Right now? Probably more than forty.”

“How’s that possible?”

Kalyn stopped, opened the door of room 111, pointed to the window. “First priority is locking every room on every corridor.” She knocked on the wood. “These doors are thick, and the locks look damn near indestructible. That’s not to say they won’t be able to get through, but they’ll make a hell of a lot of noise doing it. You have a master key, Will?”

“Yes.”

“Give it to Devlin, let her go and do that right now.”

“I don’t feel comfortable with her running around by her—”

“I think we have some time to work with here.”

Will pulled one of the master keys out of his pocket, handed it to his daughter. “Go,” he said. “Be careful, and remember to check every door after you lock it.”

As Devlin took off back toward the lobby, they reached the alcove.

“Here’s our first trouble spot,” Kalyn said. “I’ll bet they try to come in through a window either here or at the north-wing alcove. Or both. We should station someone, maybe even two people, a little ways back in the corridor with shotguns.”

“Who? There’s just me, Rachael, and—”

“We’ll need help from Sean and Ken, maybe even some of the women. Come on.”

They jogged back down the corridor, emerging finally into the lobby.

Kalyn pointed to the entrance.

“I’m not terribly worried about those doors. We’ll lock them, but no one storms the castle through the front door. With those iron bolts, they’d literally need to blow it off the hinges. I’m not sure they’re going to announce their presence like that, since they won’t know what they’re facing.”

She led them through the passage, past the dining hall, to a door that opened onto the veranda. “We’ll need someone here.”

They backtracked into the lobby, now approaching the library.

Devlin was already to the end of the first floor of the south wing. Will could hear the doors slamming, locks turning.

They entered the library.

“No one can be in here, since they could pick us off through the windows. We’ll station someone in the lobby to watch this door and the front entrance and back up the corridors.” She opened the small door to the right of the fireplace. “This would be another great point of entry.”

They started down the spiral staircase, their footfalls echoing on the metal, causing it to vibrate, Will gliding his hand along the railing.

“Move very slowly,” he said.

“I’m not going anywhere, Will. Don’t know if you’ve realized, but we need each other.”

They reached the floor of the cellar. Peering just ahead, Will could see a door outlined by seams of light where the sun passed between the cracks.

Kalyn opened it. Light poured in. He saw the empty cages.

“They won’t all enter the same way, but this is where I’d come in.”

Kalyn’s eyes fell upon something that made her smile.

She approached a wall adorned with ancient tools—saddles, scythes, machetes. Kalyn tapped one of two enormous bear traps.

“This thing’s made to catch grizzlies,” she said. “Break a man’s leg like it was nothing.”

“You think they still work? Looks pretty rusted out to me.”

“We’ll see. Come on, let’s head back up. I want to take a look through the binoculars.”

I don’t see them,” she said. “It’s just the plane.”

Kalyn stepped back inside, and Rachael shut the doors and locked them.

“How much time you think we have?” Will asked. “That’s deep snow. Might take them what? An hour? Hour and a half to get here? And we’ve burned thirty minutes already.”

Kalyn shook her head. “I actually think we’ve got time on our side. They flew right over the lodge, ballsy fuckers, set down in plain site, so they have to realize we’re aware of them. For all they know, we’ve got a small army in this lodge.”

“What are you getting at?”

“I’m fairly certain they won’t make their move until dark.”

Rachael said, “I felt better when I thought this was going to happen in daylight.”

“No, it’s good. Gives us time to prepare. We should meet with Sean and Ken and the women, tell them the good news, sign up a few recruits. But I’d like a moment with my sister first. I only saw her through a peephole yesterday. I don’t even think she knows I’m here.”

“She doesn’t,” Will said.

“Well?”

“You really think we have time for a family reunion?”

“Please, Will.”

“Five minutes.”

• • •

Will unlocked the door and walked inside, caught him rising out of bed, puffy-eyed from dehydration and looking very afraid.

“Sit down, Sean.”

Sean complied as Will closed the door and dragged a chair away from the desk. He sat facing the young man, the shotgun lying across his lap.

“Are you going to kill me?” Sean asked.

Will shook his head. “My daughter overheard a conversation between you and your father yesterday morning. You know what I’m talking about?”

Sean stared at his bare feet for a moment. “You mean in the library? After breakfast?”

Will nodded. “You didn’t want to be here, did you, Sean?”

“I didn’t know what this lodge was. I swear to you.”

“Did your father?”

“No. I mean, he’d heard it was a wild place, but we didn’t have any idea. Would you have believed it without seeing it?”

“My wife has been here for five years.”

“I’m sorry, man. Really.”

“I need to know something.”

“What?”

Will locked his gaze on Sean.

“Did you help yourself to any of the women here?”

“No.”

“You can tell me the truth.”

“I swear to you. This place makes me sick.”

“Then what did you do yesterday?”

“I stayed in my room.”

“All day?”

“Until dinner.”

“What about your father?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think he would have hurt anyone. That’s not like him.”

Will stood. “Did you grow up with firearms around the house?”

“My dad and I go elk hunting in Montana every fall.”

“Good.”

“Why is that good?”

Will walked to the door, pulled it open, cold air from the corridor sweeping in.

“Let’s go talk to your father. I’ve got some bad news.”

• • •

Lucy Dahl sat in a chair by a fireplace in one of the guest rooms, a book in her lap, her legs propped on a footstool, basking in the heat.

Kalyn closed the door and moved quietly across the room toward her sister, no sound but the shift of smoldering logs and the paper scrape as Lucy turned the pages of her book.

It had been three years since Kalyn had laid eyes on her sister, and their last words had been angry ones, a stupid fight that Kalyn had started—big sis telling little sis what was best for her life.

Two steps from the chair, Kalyn’s eyes welled up. She couldn’t see Lucy look up from her book through the lens of salt water shivering on the surface of her eyes.

“Kalyn? Oh my God.”

They sat on the floor by the fire, Lucy crying, Kalyn whispering, “I’m here, honey. I’m here.” Wanting to tell her she was safe now, that they had a plane waiting on the lake to take her home, back to her husband, away from this nightmare.

Lucy must have sensed her holding back, because she said, “What’s wrong, K? What is it?”

Kalyn shook her head, footsteps entering the boondocks of her perception, Will already coming back, the five minutes gone faster than it seemed possible.

“We’re together,” she said. “Just that we aren’t home yet.”

• • •

Will stood in front of the hearth in what had been Ethan’s room, facing twenty-two women (most of whom watched him with the desperate blankness of refugees) and Sean and Ken (still massively hungover from the previous night and looking more than a little uncertain about their demoted stations under the new management).

“As Rachael mentioned to you all, four men have landed on the inner lake. While Kalyn and I are the primary targets, you’re all in danger here, and we have to prepare. Kalyn and I can’t defend everyone on our own, and I know you’ve been through so much hell, and I’m sorry we have to deal with this, but we need your help. Sean and Ken have come on board, along with Kalyn’s sister, but we need one more volunteer.”

The women glanced at one another. A few began to cry.

It was thirty seconds before a hand went up—raised by a dark-haired woman who appeared to be in the first trimester of her pregnancy.

Will said, “Yeah? What’s your name?”

“Suzanne Tyrpak. I’ll fight. I’ve never even touched a gun before, but if you show me how, I’ll do it. I mean, if this is what we gotta do to get back to our families.”

There were no other volunteers, the rest too weak or pregnant or broken, some still whispering to themselves—incoherent, devastated babblings.

He looked at Kalyn. “That makes eight of us. Can we pull this off?”

“The beautiful thing about a twelve-gauge,” Kalyn said, “is you can be a terrible shot, and it doesn’t matter.” They all stood outside the supply room—the Innises, Kalyn, her sister, Suzanne Tyrpak, and the oilmen—shouldering pump-action Mossbergs.

Kalyn said, “I think these guys may come wearing bulletproof vests, which is why I want you to aim either below the waist or at the head. You have to pump it after every shot.” She pumped her shotgun. “The kick is strong, so remember to lean into it.”

“Is it loud?” Suzanne asked. “When you pull the trigger?”

“Loud as hell. All right, let me show you how to load.”

• • •

It took both Kalyn and Will to pull the grizzly traps off the wall, the monstrous contraptions weighing in at forty-eight pounds of rusted cast iron apiece, with jaw spreads of seventeen inches. Will stepped on the release, and they strained to force the jaws open.

Although barely legible,
AMERICAN FUR AND TRADE COMPANY, HBC NO. 6
had been engraved into the iron of the pan. When Kalyn popped it with one of the pitchforks, the snare jumped, the giant teeth chomping together, snapping the wooden handle in two.

• • •

The sun hung low in the sky, sitting just over the horizon at the end of the lake, turning clouds and snow pink, the water scarlet. Devlin watched from a window on the third floor, thought it was the most striking end of day she’d ever seen, the sky at war with itself.

• • •

Kalyn stood at the window in Rachael’s old room on the fourth floor, glassing what she could see of the surrounding grounds and forest behind the lodge.

“Light’s getting bad,” she said. “I thought maybe I’d see tracks or something.”

“You think they’re out in the woods somewhere?” Will asked.

“I would imagine, but the trees are too loaded with snow to see that far into them.”

“What if we went ahead and cut the power? Might give us an advantage, since we know the lodge better than they do.”

“Not if they have night-vision goggles. One of the things the Alphas are known for is using state-of-the-art equipment. I mean, we might as well have a Force Recon team coming after us.” She lowered the binoculars. “What’s my role from here on out? I’ve helped you prepare. Will you trust me? Let me fight when the time comes?”

“You mean am I going to give you a gun?”

“Will, no one here is as proficient as—”

“I understand that, but what you need to know is that part of me is more afraid of you than of what’s coming.”

“Will, you don’t under—”

“I understand plenty. Come on. Let’s go check the other side.”

• • •

Will found Rachael and Devlin eating leftovers with the others in the kitchen.

He asked them to walk with him, and they followed, going back up the passage, then out into the lobby, where he finally pulled them into the library and shut the door.

“Come here, guys.”

The Innises sat down in a corner by the French doors, protected from the view of anyone who might be watching from outside.

Above the skyline of firs, evening faded from pink into purple.

“It’s gonna be dark soon,” Will said, and already he could feel the sadness rising in his throat. He looked at his long-lost wife. His teenage daughter. “It’s gonna be a long, long night, and the truth is, we don’t know what’s going to happen. If we’re gonna be together in the morning. Or if this is the last …” He ground his molars together, fighting the surge of emotion.
Be strong for them.
He reached out, touched his daughter’s face. “I’m so proud of you, Devlin. The courage, the nerve you’ve shown.”

“But I’m afraid, Dad.”

“I know. We all are, and that’s okay. What matters is how you handle it. That you don’t let it handle you.” They all embraced, held on to one another for nearly a minute.

When they came apart, Will grabbed Rachael’s hands. “I want you to see the little farmhouse we have in Colorado. There are mountains, aspen trees. There’s a river nearby, and sometimes you can hear it from our bedroom. I want to be there with you and Devi and this little guy.” He touched Rachael’s rounded belly. “I’m gonna do everything I can tonight to make that possible. You both know what you have to do?” His girls nodded. “No matter what happens, I love you, Rachael. I love you, Devlin.” Rachael was crying, Devlin’s chin quivering. “All right,” Will said. “I guess it’s time.”