“They drove back to the Bay Area this morning,” she says. “The house is paid up for four more days. I can watch over you until you’re ready to go back to your house and take care of yourself. I’m sure the storm will let up by then.”

“You saved my life,” I say.

She shrugs. “I learned from the best.”

“Is there anything I can do for you?” I say. “To repay you?”

She looks at me sincerely. The firelight twinkles in her brown eyes.

“You can be the person I know you are,” she says.

We’re quiet for a few minutes, enjoying the serenity, then she asks what I’m going to do about Claire.

“Let her go,” I say. “She can have the diamonds. I want out of that life. For good.”

“She shot you,” Hannah says. “She shouldn’t get away with that.”

“A wise man once told me there’s no honor among thieves,” I say. “Everyone who lives that life ends up dead sooner or later.”

“I’m not sure that’s good enough for me,” Hannah says. “She shouldn’t get away scot-free.”

“Have they found the bodies yet?” I ask.

She shakes her head no. “I called my editor and told her I was sick and wasn’t coming in this week. She would have mentioned a double homicide if anyone knew about it. I doubt anyone’s gone hiking up there because of the snow.”

Outside, the snow is really coming down. This early in the season, it will probably melt off within a few days.

I picture spending those days curled up in front of the fire with Hannah, talking, getting to know her.

“So, what are you going to do now?” Hannah says. “Your trust fund is gone.”

“I guess I’ll get a job,” I say.

“This might help tide you over,” she says, reaching into her pocket.

She pulls out a diamond the size of a small marble and holds it between her thumb and forefinger, its surface sparkling in the firelight.

“Where did you get that?”

She explains that when we got to shore, she was trying to put my hiking shoes onto my feet when something glinting in the moonlight caught her eye. The diamond was wedged into a crack in the rocks.

“I bet there are more up there,” she says.

I shrug. “I already got what I wanted,” I say.

“What’s that?”

“To be here with you.”

She tries to hide her smile, and I can’t tell if it’s the glow of the firelight or her skin, but it looks like she’s blushing.

EPILOGUE