She couldn’t pet him and get fur on her gloves, so she smiled. “Hi, Aeneas. Miss me?”

Did Huck’s shoulders square at that question? They’d shared one intimate night together, and then nothing. She’d thought they might be becoming friends, but then he’d disappeared. The dog yipped and flipped around to follow his master.

Laurel trudged behind the two males, stepping gingerly over the exposed root of a tree that rose high out of the deep snow. The pine would probably fall over in the howling wind. She turned at a bend and stopped upon spotting a dark structure that nearly disappeared into the rock wall behind it. “Incredible.”

Huck nodded. “Yeah. It’s an old forestry cabin that was abandoned about ten years ago, according to my office. Nobody knew anyone was staying out here.”

Weathered wooden logs created a square-shaped cabin built against a solid rock wall. A crumbled stack of planks showed what had once been a porch, leaving the door two feet above the ground, now iced over with snow. A tarp partially covered a battered old side-by-side utility terrain vehicle beneath two mature blue spruce trees to the right of the cabin.

“I removed part of the tarp to see what was secured under there,” Huck explained.

Laurel looked around. Her phone buzzed again and she ignored it. “I take it UTVs are the only way to access this area?”

“Or snowmobile, during the winter.” Huck pointed to his black snowmobile with a Fish and Wildlife designation on the side. “I guess somebody could hike in during summer months. I took that old forest division trail, while you all drove along the river and then cut east along the creek.”

A branch broke over by the tarp, the ice and wind having triumphed over the slim wood.

Laurel jumped as ice and pinecones rained down. “Is that how the killer or killers reached this place? We didn’t see any tracks on our way in.”

Huck wiped snow off his cheekbone. “The snowstorm eliminated any possible tracks out here, so we don’t even know which way the killer came.”

Laurel looked around and shivered. “What a lonely place to hide.”

“Hide?”

“Yes.” Laurel moved beyond him, following his trail to the front door, which she nudged open. The cabin was one room with a blow-up mattress covered by several blankets, a fireplace with kindling and neatly stacked logs next to it, and a kitchen shelf holding a battery-operated hot plate, a plate, and a cup. Cans and more cans sat on the shelf. Noodles, soup, beans, veggies, and fruit. Even something that said turkey on it. Along with several gallon bottles of vodka and gin. Enough for months of self-numbing.

She walked to the unmade bed and lifted a tablet from it, scrolling through pages of books. “How—”