Snow Brides

by Webb, Peggy

  “Maybe she did.” Maggie pulled her cell phone from her pocket to replay her daughter’s message. They both strained toward the phone as if they might reach inside and pull Kate to safety. “Maybe the something that came up was dread of coming home to parents who don’t even seem to like each other anymore, let alone love. Just last week she asked me what was wrong between us.”

  “Nothing’s wrong. And certainly nothing I’d want to discuss with my daughter.” Joe shoved out of his chair and stalked off.

  For what? To stare out the window? To bundle up and open the trading post?

  Nowadays, trouble sent Joe racing toward the comfort of a familiar routine. But she couldn’t begrudge him the escape. After all, here she was tidying up the kitchen at four a.m.

  The phone she’d left on the table jangled and Roger’s number popped up. She seized it as if it were the last life raft on the Titanic.

  “Hello.”

  “Maggie, we’ve found her car.”

  “Thank God! Just a minute. I want to get Joe.” Maggie raced to the door and yelled for her husband, who came on the run. She punched speakerphone. “Go ahead, Roger.”

  “Kate’s car is in the ditch on a small side road called Glen’s Crossing about sixty-five miles south of Grand Marsais.”

  The ghost of a memory nagged at Maggie, and she felt the chill of an awful premonition. What was it? She was so tired she couldn’t think straight.

  “How is she, Roger? Is she okay?”

  “She’s not here. We found her suitcase in the backseat and a winter parka in the front.”

  “Kate would never leave the car without a coat,” Joe said. “She’s a seasoned hiker.”

  “What about her backpack?” Maggie tried to rein in her fear. More and more it appeared her daughter had been taken.

  “We haven‘t found anything else yet. I’ve got deputies fanned into the woods searching but the snow last night covered any tracks we might have discovered.”

  “I’m telling you, Kate wouldn’t have left the car,” Joe said. “I know that area. It’s isolated. There’s not a single place nearby where she could have walked in this snow for help, particularly when she could have called us.”

  “Looks like she had a blowout and the front end of her car is smashed up pretty bad. Considering her GPS tracking information we can’t discount kidnapping. I’m still waiting for a call from authorities in Canada.”

  Dread washed over Maggie, and a premonition so horrible she could almost see her daughter, rendered powerless by evil.

  “Something about this whole scenario doesn’t feel right, Roger. Give Joe the exact location of the car. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  As Maggie raced out of the kitchen she heard Roger firing off directions followed by the caution, “Storm’s coming. We don’t have much time.”

  Didn’t he think she knew that? The latest weather report from Stan the weatherman said the massive storm would hit northern Minnesota in ten hours.

  Maggie raced into her daughter’s bedroom and grabbed the raggedy old Pooh Bear off the bed. Kate had slept with it every night since she was born. The wonder is that she hadn’t carried it to college with her. It would hold more of her scent than anything else in the room.

  Air scent dogs, unlike tracking dogs, didn’t need an article that belonged to the missing. They worked by sniffing the air for the trail everybody leaves behind, unaware--unseen skin cells and hair that float away when you pass through a place, even the gases you exhale when you breathe. Their uncanny olfactory ability was why air scent dogs were so valuable working landslides, avalanches and other freaks of nature and man that buried multiple victims under tons of debris.

  Still, the scent-specific object would let Jefferson know beyond a shadow of a doubt he wasn’t looking for multiple people. His job was to find Kate.

  Kate’s bear almost brought Maggie to tears. She hugged the stuffed animal, trying to comfort herself by touching something belonging to her daughter. Finally she said, “Get moving.”

  It was the sort of advice she’d once given Kate. When you think you can’t go one step more, give yourself a pep talk. Out loud.

  As she hurried about packing everything she’d need for a SAR search in the dead of winter, possibly in the middle of a blizzard, the memory she’d sought earlier hit her with a force that buckled her knees.

  The snow. The location, not twenty miles from Glen’s Crossing. The missing girls. Two of them, one year apart. Both college age, both blond. Like Kate.

  Maggie had found both of them dead.

  Chapter Two

  4: 45 a.m

  “Maggie?” When she didn’t answer, Joe found his wife sitting in the middle of their bedroom floor clutching Kate’s beat-up old teddy bear. He knelt beside her. “Are you okay? What happened?”

  “Nothing. Help me up. I don’t have a minute to lose.”

  “You mean we. I’m going with you.”

  “You don’t have to. You can stay here in case she shows up. Roger can be my base camp and Jefferson won’t let me get lost.”

  “She’s my daughter, too, Maggie.”

  “Fine,” she said.

  That was it? Fine? It felt cold, impersonal, and nothing like the relationship they’d once had.

  He didn’t point out that he knew the Superior wilderness as well or better than any air scent dog his wife had ever handled. He’d hiked the entire three hundred twenty-six miles of Superior Trail many times.

  She’d been right about the amount of time he spent there. Nature was the world’s greatest tranquilizer. The grandeur that was both beautiful and dangerous overwhelmed the senses to the point there was no room for anything except awe.

  Joe hurried to load his four-wheel drive extended cab truck, shutting down his memories from force of habit. Jefferson jumped into the backseat and promptly curled onto his blanket. He’d be asleep within minutes. Smart dog, conserving his energy for the brutal search ahead.

  Maggie climbed into the passenger side. “You got directions?”

  “Yes.”

  Twenty years ago, when they met, she wouldn’t have asked. They’d been paired together with their dogs, working a mudslide that had trapped hikers on the Superior Trail, and they’d trusted each other—and their feelings--as instinctively as they’d trusted their SAR dogs. Within two weeks he’d moved into her cottage in Grand Marsais.

  “To see if our dogs are as compatible as we are,” Joe had teased her.

  “If they’re not, I’m getting a different dog.”

  Theirs had been a perfect match, both human and canine. Joe had planned to work the search and rescue missions with his wife until they grew too old, and then spend their retirement fishing and boating and dropping hints to Kate to make them doting grandparents.

  Now, Maggie sighed and leaned her head against the back of the seat.

  “You should sleep while you have the chance.”

  “I can’t.” She turned to him in the darkened cab. “I’m fine.”

  Joe let her lie slide. The last time she’d said she was fine and really meant it, she’d been holding their baby daughter, watching him load up Clint, his German shepherd air scent dog, for the massive search and rescue after the 9-11 attack on the World Trade Towers.

  He tried to shut down the memories, but the stress of his missing daughter and the lull of driving through the darkness in a silent cab on a road with few travelers opened a floodgate. The horrors he’d locked out for years came pouring back. The ash, everything covered with ash, the acrid scent of burning jet fuel, the charred bodies they’d found, one after the other.

  There were so many dead, so many failures, that dogs accustomed to the excitement of finding the lost still alive became depressed. Clint’s sense of defeat showed in his tucked tail, the hangdog expression when he stood back from the latest remains he’d found.

  Finally Joe had come up with the idea of letting a few of the handlers hide and then sending the search dogs out so they cou
ld rescue someone alive. Canine morale improved so dogs and handlers could keep pushing forward, working against time and brutal conditions.

  Joe had been getting ready to take Clint out for some rest when the big German shepherd gave the alert signal indicating he’d caught a scent.

  “Good boy. Search.” Joe patted his head and watched him trot once more into the rubble. That was the last time he ever saw his dog.

  Just as Clint disappeared into the building there was an ominous rumble, the dreadful warning of collapse. Clint, along with dozens of other SAR dogs, died at the World Trade Towers, canine heroes as surely as all the first responders who gave up their lives for others.

  The spirit went out of Joe. Guilt seared his soul. Clint didn’t get to choose whether he wanted to be a search dog. Joe had chosen for him. He’d made the decision to send his dog into the horror of two collapsing skyscrapers in the aftermath of the unthinkable, a terrorist attack on American soil.

  He couldn’t bear the thought of sending another dog into harm’s way, the agony of finding so many victims after a disaster of that scope. Joe always entered a search filled with empathy for the lost and the loved ones they’d left behind. Every tragedy punched a hole in his heart. He knew if he kept going with his heart wide open, he was heading for a breakdown.

  And so he’d closed himself off from his feelings, built walls to keep the tattered pieces of his heart intact, remained silent hoping the nightmares would eventually subside.

  Against Maggie’s advice, he gave up SAR and built Carter’s Trading Post, boat rentals and wilderness outfitters. If hikers also wanted a guided tour of the Superior Trail, Joe Carter was the man. He could control the hikes, set the rules, keep everybody safe.

  What a joke. He’d managed to keep everybody safe except the ones who mattered most--his family.

  Any fool could see how he and Maggie had drifted apart. They went their separate ways so often they hardly saw each other. Even when they were both home, it seemed they’d become polite strangers.

  And then in September, after his heart-wrenching trip to Ground Zero for a ceremony honoring the dog heroes of 9-11, the gap between them had turned into a chasm. He’d lost his dog, his wife, his hope of a large family and the profession he’d once loved. Soon he’d lose his only child, who had entered her freshman year in college and in the blink of an eye would be packing to strike out on her own.

  Life seemed pointless.

  And now this. His daughter, gone. Maybe forever.

  They were heading straight to the area where Maggie had found those dead girls. Both posed in the snow. Joe couldn’t bear to think about what might have happened to Kate.

  He glanced across the cab at his wife. She was sleeping, finally. A small blessing. His wife couldn’t see how the wind was picking up speed, how the previous night’s snowfall was being lifted into the air, making visibility harder.

  How long before there would be a complete whiteout? They hadn’t even begun the search and time was already running out for them.

  His stomach heaving, Joe eased onto the shoulder and lost what little food he’d had since he realized his daughter wasn’t coming home.

  Chapter Three

  5:00 a.m.

  Run! Run! Run!

  Fear and adrenaline pumped through Kate. She wanted to race across the long stretch of yard toward the trail, a mere gap in the trees barely visible in the woods up ahead. But she was watching, standing under a dim light in the doorway of the farmhouse, training her flashlight beam on Kate and smiling as if she were a favorite aunt sending her off for cookies and milk next door instead of toward a rough trail in snowy woods into the wild unknown.

  Clutching the borrowed coat that was too big and far too lightweight to offer any protection from the looming blizzard, Kate made herself wave at Betty. She even made herself mouth thank you, though whether the woman would see through the snow swirling in the wind, she didn’t know. Then she forced herself to walk away from the house of horrors as if she didn’t have a single suspicion.

  Keep up the charade. Act dumb. Play the helpless, scared female.

  Kate was the exact opposite of the role she played. She had her mother’s fierce spirit plus a shelf full of trophies from her days as the star of her high school cross-country track team as well as her cross-country ski team. She also had knowledge of the wilderness accumulated through years of tagging along behind her daddy on the hiking trails. She knew the location of every treacherous ravine and frozen lake on the trails she’d run, skied and hiked. Though a fat lot of good any of that would do in millions of acres of wilderness without skis, winter gear, or even the bare minimum supplies to keep her alive.

  She had one granola bar Betty had tucked into her coat pocket.

  “In case you get hungry before you get to the trading post,” she’d said, then winked, as if the two of them had become best friends overnight and now shared some delicious secret.

  The only thing Kate had in common with Betty was being trapped overnight in the same house with a raving madman. Still, Betty had been kind to her, and was the only reason Kate was now free. She vowed that if she ever got out of this alive, she’d make sure the unfortunate woman was rescued.

  Kate kept a steady pace until she reached the protection of the trees and was out of the path of Betty’s flashlight. Then she turned for one last look. Thank goodness Betty was no longer watching from the doorway. The entire house was dark. She hoped the poor woman had gone back to bed and, come morning, she’d find a way to keep Jonathan from following. Betty had promised to try.

  “And that’s all a mother can do,” she’d said. “Put her whole heart into her child and then try to keep him on the straight and narrow. Jonathan is a bit irrepressible, but deep down he’s a good boy.”

  Irrepressible didn’t begin to describe that maniac.

  Fear and the urge to run still clawed at Kate. If she took off running now, she could be at the store in fifteen minutes, even in the snow. Betty had given her explicit instructions. Follow the trail...one mile to Wayne’s Trading Post…right on the trail…telephone service...food…safe shelter from the approaching snowstorm.

  But what if Betty had given her the wrong directions or Kate had misunderstood? In the excitement of being tugged awake in the dark and hearing Betty’s whisper, “Shh. I’m going to help you,” Kate could easily have gotten confused. She wasn’t a morning person. And if she got lost she certainly was not equipped to survive a long journey home through a monster snow storm.

  Her belongings were in her car, but she had only a vague idea of the location in relation to Betty’s house and no idea how far it was. Besides, her vehicle was the first place Jonathan would look--the same place where he’d found her.

  Was it only yesterday?

  It seemed forever since she’d headed home for the holidays. It seemed to Kate another girl had seen the detour sign, that someone not as savvy as she had turned her car onto the ill-kept road without a second thought then called home to announce her delay--right before the blowout catapulted her car over the edge of a small ravine.

  The details surrounding her wreck were fuzzy—the brutal force of the airbag, her rescuer, big and rawboned, driving a snowmobile, asking if she was okay. The last thing she remembered was drinking hot coffee from his thermos.

  She’d awakened with a horrible headache in an unfamiliar bed—and still struggled with a persistent dull throbbing.

  As she paced herself toward the trail, memories crowded in…

  The view from the strange bedroom window had shown a snow-covered forest. What rural view in a Minnesota winter didn’t?

  Kate struggled to sit up, but her head was pounding so hard she flopped back onto the pillows and glanced around the strange room. It was sparsely furnished and very clean. But where was her backpack? Her coat? Her phone?

  “Hello?” she called. “Hello? Is anybody there?”

  The door opened and a tall big-boned woman with gray streaks through her b
lond hair entered carrying a tray filled with food.

  “You’re awake!”

  “Where am I?”

  “At my house, honey, and don’t you worry about a thing. I’ve brought good hot beef and vegetable soup, my specialty.” The woman set the tray on the bedside table then sank onto the mattress. It sagged under her weight. Up close her face still told the story that she’d once been a beautiful woman. “By the way, my son Jonathan’s the one found you. I sent him back to your car to get your belongings.”

  “Do you have a phone I can use?”

  “Phone lines are down and we have to go into Glen’s Crossing to get cell phone service.” The woman patted her hand. “I’m Betty, hon. What’s your name?”

  “Kate. Kate Carter.”

  “It’s lovely to have another female in the house. Somebody to talk to besides my son. I bet you’re a college girl.“

  “I am.” Kate glanced at her watch. Already two o’clock? “Listen, I hate to be rude but my parents are going to be worried sick. I was supposed to be home two hours ago.”

  “Don’t fret. As soon as Jonathan gets back with your things, he’ll take the snowmobile into Glen’s Crossing and call your parents. You just rest now. You had a nasty bump on that pretty head of yours.”

  When Betty left, Kate dug into the food, astonished at how hungry she was. The soup was especially delicious.

  A loud click stopped Kate’s spoon in mid-air. It was the unmistakable sound of a key turning in the door lock.

  “No, no, no, no, no!” As Kate raced toward the door, pain exploded through her head. She caught the side of a dressing table and stood there a moment, swaying.

  “What are you doing?” The voice beyond the door was male, loud and angry. Could it be Jonathan, the son?

  “Cleaning up the mess you made.” That was definitely Betty.

  Kate rushed to the door and tugged.

  “Betty? The door’s locked!” No response. Kate started banging. “Is that Jonathan? Did he bring my things?” Still, nothing. “Betty! Open up!”